


Pistol Packin' Mama

by AccioRavenclaw



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Far Harbor, Gen, Nuka World, railroad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:12:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9638465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioRavenclaw/pseuds/AccioRavenclaw
Summary: Cara stumbled out of vault 111 with no concrete plan other than get her son back and kill the sonuvabitch who shot her husband.   200 years out of time, she'll have more than just the dangers of the commonwealth to navigate.An episodic account of Cara's journey in the commonwealth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I've been putzing around with between college and work. This story is going to be multiple chapters. I don't know how many yet, and I don't know what the average length will be, but here it is.

**October 23, 2287**  
  
She’s sitting in the Red Rocket Truck Stop with bits of mole rat cooking on the fire nearby.  
  
“I shot my first man today,” she tells Dogmeat. The blood of raiders on her suit; their faces still visible when she closes her eyes for too long.  
  
He licks her hand and she raises it to scratch his ears.  
  
Across the river Preston and the others are gathered around their own fire. She’d join them, but she’s had her fill of Sanctuary and the ghosts howling in the wind of the old homes for one day.  
  
It seemed like only yesterday everything was fine. But yesterday was over 200 hundred years ago and in-between her whole world came crashing down in nuclear fire.  
  
She pulls bits of meat off the metal spike and absently feeds them to Dogmeat. Then she twists the cap off of a whiskey – Nate’s drink of choice – she pulled from a neighbor’s house. 200 years old and tastes like stale piss.  
  
She won’t think about him now. Won’t think about his face, the blood spatter in the pod, or the weight of the second ring on her finger. She’s got other things on her mind, more important things to be worried about. Like finding Shaun. Like learning to navigate the wasteland she’s woken up to.  
  
In the corner of the garage sits an old mattress she dragged from Sanctuary with Codsworth’s help. He had asked if this were necessary the whole walk across the bridge. But she just couldn’t put it into words at the time.  
  
Unlike the shell of their old home, the truck stop doesn’t scream with the ghosts of the past. Which is almost funny, considering the garage was practically a second home to her anyway. The old toolbox stands with her name plate still there, as faded as it is: _Cara O’Dell_  
  
She takes another swig from the bottle, grimacing at the aftertaste. The Geiger counter speaks its protest on her arm.  
  
_Where do I go from here?_  
  
Mama Murphy had said Diamond City was her best option. Though she isn’t sure how much she trusts the old addict, it’s about the only direction she has.  
  
Preston had also asked for a favor: to check on some people who had called for help. She isn’t sure about the man or the other people settling into her old home, but something in her gut trusts him.  
  
She douses the fire before sealing the garage door. Curling up on the mattress with Dogmeat at her legs she turns her options over one last time in her mind. Her last thoughts of the night being that she would decide what to do in the morning.

* * *

**October 25, 2287**  
  
It’s nearly nightfall, the last licks of daylight cast over the sky, and Dogmeat is chasing after feral ghouls in the old train switch station.  
  
Ghouls give her the creeps, but they don’t take more than a few bullets each to kill. She wishes they weren’t so fast though.  
  
One of her shots misses and an explosion goes off. Apparently whatever was in those barrels doesn’t mix well with bullets. She’s far enough away to not get burned, but the heat still washes over her face as the last of the ghouls go quiet. The crackle of flames dying out in the night is the only thing she hears.  
  
Suddenly it’s too quiet and panic seizes her chest. _Dogmeat!_  
  
“Dogmeat,” she shouts. Silence. “Dogmeat!” she shouts again, louder and voice scratching her throat.  
  
Finally she hears a whimper. Immediately she’s running, frantic and calling as she gets closer to the sound. Her boots kicking ash and embers on the platform. The stench of burnt skin and hair hanging in the air, and her heartbeat hammering in her chest.  
  
She finds him inside the station, on the floor of the lower level. She jumps the steps to get to him. She can see that one of his paws is bent at an awkward angle and some fur has been singed by the flames. Instantly she’s on him with a stimpak in hand. She can’t lose him. She can’t go through another loss.  
  
She sees Nate. Hears gunfire and blood spatter.  
  
_She can’t. She can’t. She can’t._  
  
She’s crying and Dogmeat licks her face as she jams the needle in the flesh just above the wound. She holds him, trying to correct the angle of his paw as the miracle drug kicks in.  
  
It strikes her that this is the first time she’s cried since the bombs and the Vault.  
  
At the same moment it strikes her as pathetic. Of all the people to walk out of the vault it had to be her. It couldn’t have be Nate, the only person she knows who would’ve been able to make it in the new world. He could shoot straight, probably wouldn’t waste clips missing shots like she did. He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to hit an explosive container. He’d be able to find their son.  
  
But he’s gone, his body encrusted in ice in that tomb overlooking their old home. Though part of her longs to join him in eternal icy slumber, she knows she can’t. She has promises to keep and the rings still sit heavy on her finger.  
  
Once Dogmeat is back on his feet, tail wagging and as happy as ever, she wipes her tears and gets started on looting what she can from the train yard. Admittedly it isn’t much, but a pack of cigarettes is a lucky find.  
  
When she’s done, they continue to walk along the tracks. A short distance from the main building a body catches Dogmeat’s eye. A young woman, black hair, with scorch marks on her jacket. No longer a stranger to looting corpses, it still seems distasteful to her as she begins to dig through the woman’s pockets. She hopes for spare ammo for her pistol.  
  
Instead she finds a note in the breast pocket of the woman’s jacket. “The package arrives at midnight,” written in a hasty scrawl.  
  
Cara spends a minute wondering at the note’s meaning, but guesses that perhaps it was some kind of deal gone wrong. It isn’t until Dogmeat finds a second body that things don’t exactly add up. There’s another, longer note on his body.  
  
“Deliver your package to the old switching station. The runner arrives at midnight. If you need gear, look for the blue barrel.” The hand writing is too similar to not be from the same person.  
  
She walks the stairs into the switch station office and sees it spattered in blood. An abandoned gun lays on the floor. The body count seems wrong now. No body that the blood on the walls belongs to is there.  
  
“Something’s up, Dogmeat.” She says, still so unsure of what happened here. And she doesn’t know why she cares. Her mother scolding “curiosity killed the cat” comes to the front of her mind.  
  
She turns the terminal on and ejects the holotape, hoping for answers. She plays it on her pip-boy and hears the last moments of one man’s life and the voice of another man who goes by numbers instead of a name. As per usual these days, she has more questions than answers.  
  
She looks out past the broken glass and sees one blue freight car. She thinks of the man’s note and decides it’s worth looking into it.  
  
“Come on, Dogmeat.” She says as she descends the stairs.  
  
Inside the car are several shelves and barrels. She’s busy collecting the stimpaks out of a first aid kit when Dogmeat finds the barrel.  
  
“Good boy,” she says as he rakes his paw against the metal, tail wagging.  
  
A blue cooler is hidden inside the barrel containing more stimpaks, a bottle of pills labeled rad-x, and some cans of food. All of which she stuffs into her pack. To the right on the wall she sees, marked in chalk, eight lines surrounding a square. She wonders at its meaning, and who could have written it.  
  
But, like the bodies and the blood, she decides it’s a mystery she may never know the answer to.  
  
“Come one, boy, we’ve still got quite a way to go before we reach Tenpines Bluff. Someone’s gotta tell them the good news about those raiders.” She says, looking at the map on her Pip-boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *EDIT* As of Sept. 16, 2018 I'm editing and revising the chapters posted. Some of the shorter chapters will be merged with others. Sorry for the inconvenience!


	2. Chapter 2

**November 13, 2287**  
  
Winter seemed to come early, sweeping into the commonwealth with frosty window glass and visible breath in the air.  
  
For three weeks now she’s been working towards Diamond City. For three weeks she’s been running between settlements for Preston because for some reason she just can’t say ‘no’. Couldn’t say ‘no’ when Preston sent her off to clear out and set up Sunshine Tidings, Starlight Drive In, and Outpost Zimonja. Couldn’t say ‘no’ when he had her answering flare calls at Abernathy Farm, Oberland Station, and Greentop Nursery. Those robots at Grey Garden even suckered her into fixing their water.  
  
Nearly a week shy of a month since leaving the vault and she’s still nowhere closer to finding Shaun. It’s on the third week she finally makes it to Bunker Hill and decides enough is enough. This time she’s going to Diamond City.  
  
While answering the questions of the woman at the gate – raider or caravan, isn’t the vault suit answer enough – Dogmeat leaves her side to greet one of the passing caravan guards. Dogmeat’s tendency to wander more often than not has her chasing off after him into more trouble than either can handle. So she’s quick to catch up to him before he gets himself into trouble with the caravans.  
  
“Hey sorry about him, hope he’s not bothering you.” She says to the caravan guard with dark sunglasses over his eyes once she’s caught up to them.  
“Nah, he’s fine.” The man replies, scratching Dogmeat behind the ears.  
  
“Oh, uh, good.” She replies, not really sure what – if anything – she should be saying. “Um, by the way, can you suggest a route to Diamond City?” she finally settles on asking.  
  
“Yeah, head south over the bridge. Follow the street south until you reach a place called Goodneighbor. It’s a, well, an interesting town. Good place to stock up again, but not a place you want to linger in for too long. Anyway, just head southwest of Goodneighbor and you’ll reach the Boston Common. Be careful around there and, whatever you do, don’t go near the pond. Just go west and you’ll start seeing the signs for the great green jewel.”  
  
“Thanks for the help.” She replies, dropping markers in the map of her pip-boy.  
  
“Wait, one more thing, I should warn you that the super mutants have been more active around the city these days.”  
  
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” she replies.  
  
“If you hear gunfire, run the other direction. I’d hate to see anything happen to you or that pup of yours.”  
  
“Generally a good rule of thumb. Thanks again.” She waves farewell and heads towards the trading center of town. She gives a short whistle and Dogmeat comes back to happily walking beside her once more.  
  
A young girl approaches her. “You’re new here, right? Want the tour? It’s only ten caps.”  
  
“For ten caps why not.” Cara replies.  
  
“Caps up front,” the girl says with her hand held out. Cara fishes the less than a dozen caps from her pocket and the girl lights up. “Thank you! The market’s in the back, the bar’s in the corner, and the outhouse is over the wall. Bye!” The girl smiles as Cara stands there, dumbfounded for only a moment before she beings laughing.  
  
“That was good,” She admits, smiling back at the kid before she walks off jingling the caps in her hand. Of all the shit she’s seen that has to be the best con she’s fallen for in ages. The caravan guard laughs a bit behind her too.  
  
In the market she buys less ammo than she’s comfortable carrying. But it’s a choice between a handful of ammo and a stimpak and she’d rather have the ammo. Her bag is still too light, but she’ll make do with what she has. She always has.  
  
When she leaves the trading hub she finds that the guard actually gave excellent directions. She wanders into Goodneighbor after two hours of walking the city streets.  
  
“First time in Goodneighbor?” A man asks at the gate. “You should know, you can’t go walking around without insurance.”  
  
“Unless it’s “keep-dumb-assholes-away-from-me” insurance, I’m not interested.” She replies. This is no child cleverly conning people out of caps; this is a grown man trying to intimidate and she won’t be moved by it.  
  
“Now don’t be like that, I think you’re going to like what I have on offer. You hand over everything you got in them pockets, or “accidents” are going to start happening to you. Big, bloody “accidents”. Got it?”  
  
For a moment she wonders if she’s going to have to fight in the middle of the square before someone else steps in to her defense: a ghoul in colonial clothes.  
  
Preston once told her that some ghouls were okay, but the only ghouls she’s met have been the ravenous and dangerous kind. Ferals, she’s heard the others call them. And in the last three weeks she's fought more than her fair share of them.  
  
She isn’t all that sure that she shouldn’t be defensive around the man either as he stabs the other in front of all to see. She certainly isn’t convinced when he tries to assure her that this incident shouldn’t taint her view of his community. When he saunters off down the street she isn’t entirely sure if she shouldn’t just walk right back out the gate. Instead she decides to check in with the shops, since it couldn’t hurt to acquaint herself with them.  
  
But as she approaches a shop called Kill or Be Killed, Dogmeat wanders off again. This isn’t the kind of place she wants him wandering off into so she follows him instead.  
  
Dogmeat approaches a man with glasses and something about him seems familiar. Like she's seen him before, but she's not sure where.   
  
She gets her fingers under Dogmeat's collar and gives a slight tug. “Hey Dogmeat, come on boy. You need to stop bothering people.” She says.  
  
“Nah, he’s no bother. You’re new right? Ever heard of the memory den? Now that’s a trip that’s better than any chem.” The man says and there’s something in his voice that sounds familiar to her too. Almost unsettling as she looks at her own reflection in his sunglasses.  
  
“Uh, thanks, but I have other places to be.” She replies.  
  
The man shrugs, “Suit yourself.”  
  
“Come on, Dogmeat. Diamond City is waiting.” She says with one last cautious look at the man as she walks back towards the gates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I justify Cara realizing something is up with the mystery guy in shades because she has a perception of 8.


	3. Chapter 3

**November 14, 2287**  
  
She leaves the city gates with an urgent step. It’s just her damn luck that the only person in the city who can help her is missing himself. Not that the city is all that welcoming either, with paranoia through the roof and questions pertaining to missing people seemingly taboo.  
  
She found out why soon enough when brothers pulled guns on each other in the market square in the middle of the afternoon. The shooting in the market place was too raw: the fear, the blood, the tears, the hushed whispers and averted gazes. And all for what?  
  
“What’s wrong with synths?” She had asked one of the guards on the edge of the market gathering.  
  
She had asked the one with the glasses, but the one in the full face mask replied first. “Jesus lady, what rock have you been living under? Don’t know about synths. They’re the Institute’s spies. Nine times out of ten if something goes wrong there’s a synth behind it.”  
  
“Oh,” was all she could think to say. She glanced at the other guard and something in the tight line of his jaw made her think he held a different opinion.  
  
“You have any other dumb questions, go read the Publick. Piper’s been obsessed for years.” He says before turning his back to work his usual rounds. The other guard is about to walk away too before she stops him with a question. “What do you think?”  
  
“What?” He asks with his jaw less tight. He's harder to read, his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses.  
  
“You looked like you had something else to say? About synths, I mean.” She says.  
  
“Not really, but hey, try to keep in mind that there’s exceptions to everything.” He replies while scratching Dogmeat behind the ears. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He turned to leave and Cara didn’t stop him a second time.  
  
Instead she left for the gates.  
  


* * *

  
  
She passes the sign for the second time on her way to the vault. “At journey’s end follow freedom’s lantern”, the board of wood reads in blue letting. On one of the placks of the freedom trail someone has painted the first clue: a red arrow pointing to the letter “A” with a number seven.  
  
She looks at Dogmeat and shakes her head. A mystery for another day. Right now it’s about Nick and avoiding whatever’s lurking near the pond.  
  


* * *

  
  
Nick isn’t anything remotely close to who – or what, she expected. Hell of a detail for Ellie to forget to mention.  
  
But Dogmeat barks and wags his tail at the sight of him and it sets Cara’s nerves at ease. He’s been an excellent judge of character so far.  
  
Nick lights up a cigarette and she can’t stop herself from asking, “Can you even smoke that?”  
  
There’s something in his eyes that tell her he’s not sure if she’s insulting him or genuinely curious. For a moment she thinks it odd how those robotic eyes can be so expressive. Something in their yellow glow that strangely feels human.  
  
He settles for calling her a wise ass and she cracks a surprised smile for the first time in what feels like ages. She decides that she likes him.  
  
“So, I guess you didn’t come all this way risking life and limb just to spring me from a vault.”  
  
Cara shakes her head. “Would it surprise you if I had a case for you?”  
  
“It would surprise me if you didn’t. What kind of case?”  
  
“Missing person.”  
  
“No shortage of those, I’m afraid. Come on, let’s blow this joint. I’ll fill you in on the way.”  
  
Together they blast their way through the vault. “Loud and hard type, eh?” Nick says at her side as she lines up a shot with the triggermen in the doorway.  
  
For the briefest of moments she considers how far she’s come from shooting bottles on a fence in Sanctuary. How far she is from wasting clips on stationary targets. How the 10millimeter pistol feels like an extension of herself now. How she’s able to shoot the rifle that’s slung across her back.  
  
When she shoots, she hits her target. The man falls to the floor and they advance further along the vault.  
  
Turns out Nick’s quip about Skinny Malone’s name being ironic wasn’t that far off, and she can’t help but appreciate the sense of humor. Fortunately, Skinny has bad taste in women and Cara has a way with words. Together they trace a similar path Darla took out of the vault as Skinny gives them a generous count of ten.  
  
When they stumble into the Valentine Detective Agency at one in the morning, Ellie practically flings herself at them. “Oh god, it’s really you!” she exclaims as she wraps her arms around Nick’s thin frame. She lets go just as quickly to thank Cara, pressing a bag of caps into her hands.  
  
It feels too similar to when Preston did the same in Concord. “I didn’t do it for the caps.”  
  
“I know there wasn’t a reward on the table when you left, but please just take them.”  
  
But more than the caps, Cara is pleasantly surprised to learn that Ellie had a pot of coffee on the hot plate going before they walked in. It came out of a foil lined tin, at this point she’s be willing to make an exception to her “eat-nothing-older-than-I-am” rule for it anyway. It’s her first cup in nearly a month; it’s a bit burnt tasting, but she drinks it all the same.  
  
With a cup in hand, Nick asks her to take a seat and the interview begins.  
  
“We were in a vault when it happened. Vault 111.” She begins mechanically, feeling the ring’s weight on her finger, and soon she’s spilling her guts to them. With Ellie writing furiously on a clipboard as words tumble out of her mouth. She talks about everything: Of Shaun, of the man who took him, of the vault, and even Nate. And they were both kind to her.  
  
“There’s exceptions to everything,” the guard with the glasses had said. Sitting in Nick’s office with a cup of coffee and a sense that she’s made new friends, Cara couldn’t agree more.


	4. Chapter 4

**November 22, 2287**  
  
Buzzed was four beers ago – if she could even call the stuff in the bottles Charlie was handing her beer. The taste was awful and it hit her system faster than she thought it would. Given what she knew about the bar and the town, maybe they were strengthened with something she’d lose sleep over if she was dumb enough to ask.  
  
Kellogg is dead. He’s been lying stone cold in the basement of Fort Hagen for five days now. For three of those days Cara has been wandering around Goodneighbor wondering how she’s going to track a person she knows by name only in one of the most deadly areas in the whole Commonwealth. All she knows of the glowing sea is what people have told her, and she believes them.  
  
Nick had suggested power armor, but the set that she has back at Red Rocket is missing limbs. It’s rusty and damaged and she only has an eighth of a fusion core left. She may as well wade into the Glowing Sea naked for all the help it will do in its current state.  
  
She had also told Nick to return to Diamond City three days earlier. Before he left he offered to join back up with her as soon as she figured out a way to navigate the radiation.  
  
She liked Nick, she really did, but the truth was that she couldn’t look Nick in the face; which was awful considering all he had done and risked. But there was no preparing for hearing the ghost of Kellogg’s voice come from Nick’s mouth. The Doctor’s assurances did little to settle her own moment of panic that followed.  
  
She was in no position to be turning away friends, especially one like Nick. She probably mucked this up like so much else in her life.  
  
A sheep in the wolf’s den, Nat had called her. After the combat zone and that whole business with Bobbi she was really beginning to see just how well and truly lost she was.  
  
Because Bobbi was dead on the floor of Hancock’s strongroom. She's racking up a body count and Mel wouldn’t even looked at her when she went to apologize to Fahrenheit. She didn’t mean to get caught up in Bobbi’s scheme, but she needed the caps. A handful of bloody caps she was tossing at Charlie now because she couldn’t stand to have them in her pocket any longer.  
  
She took another swig from the bottle, contemplated finishing it off in one go but decided against it. Cait sat passed out on the bar stool next to her, face in her arm on the bar, and someone had to be sober enough to get them checked into the hotel. The tunnels had done them both in and though it wouldn’t be a sight out of the ordinary, sleeping drunk on the streets of Goodneighbor was not the way Cara wanted to spend the night.  
  
So she set the bottle down with the growing pile on the bar counter. This whole thing hadn’t been a good idea, but then again she couldn’t think of one good idea she’s had since exiting the vault.  
  
If only Preston could see her now, she thinks, and see what real general material she is. It only took three days without Nick for her to wade into more trouble than she could handle. There are probably a dozen calls for Minutemen aid that’s she’s missed since she last spoke to Preston. Honestly, whether it’s the alcohol or not, she really can’t bring herself to give a shit. She still has to find her son and tuck those Institute bastards in for a dirt nap.  
  
Because her sweet tiny baby is already somewhere close to ten. She's missed ten whole years of his life to the Institute. Shaun doesn’t even know she’s his mother as he calls someone else “Father” when his real father is dead at the Institute's hand. Was there anything else this cruel world forgot to throw at her just for shits and giggles?  
  
She poked at the half empty bottle on the counter. Maybe tomorrow she could go back to Diamond City and apologize to Nick. Introduce him to Cait and maybe they could all still be friends. Ellie had said they had a lot of backed up cases, maybe she could help with those until she figured out what she was supposed to do next. Or until she earned the caps to get decent power armor.  
  
‘Maybe some honest paying work will do me some good.’ She thinks as she gets to her feet and starts the process of getting Cait to hers. It’s a long walk up the stairs out of the Third Rail and Cara realizes just how far south of sober she really is as Ham gives her a reproachful glance. Too bad she still can’t bring herself to give a shit what the bouncer thinks as she stumbles into the night air with Cait practically draped around her shoulder.

* * *

**November 23, 2287**

She walks out of Falon’s Basement with a completely different outfit. She entered in the blue vault suit she’s been living in as a second skin for a month, and left with jeans and a leather jacket. It was worth dipping into her meager stash of caps for boots with a decent sole in them. And the jacket to fight the winter's chill that has been creeping up on the Commonwealth the past couple of weeks. 

As she wanders the market she wonders how Cait is doing on her journey to Sanctuary. Meeting the old Vault-Tech salesman while carrying her intoxicated friend was certainly not high on her list of expectations when she walked into the Hotel Rexford the previous night. Of all the people to possibly survive nuclear hellfire, he was probably one of the last people she wanted to see from the old days. But they stood in that hallway talking for the better part of an hour and some pieces of her puzzle fell into place. The man was as much a victim of Vault-Tec as she was. And, in the end, she offered him a job up at Sanctuary and sent Cait with him as a body guard. 

Though perhaps that was not one of her better ideas as this morning her friend was nursing a hangover. Then again, it seemed that Cait lived in a state of perpetual hangover so who could really say.

Either way, she hoped it was a good deed to maybe get her karma back into the green.

She makes her way to the Noodle stand, orders from the robot and waits to be served. While waiting she pulls the holotape from Becky’s store from her pocket. She had swiped it off the counter with her purchase accidently, but now it piqued her curiosity. In a familiar scrawl the words “Join the Railroad” were written on a duct tape label. She pulled an old piece of paper from her pocket and compares the two: The “I’s” and “n’s” are similar enough, but she can really see it in the way the “t’s” are written. Whoever wrote the letter she found on the body outside of Bedford station also wrote the label for the tape. 

She folds the paper back up and places both back in her pocket as Takahashi places a bowl of piping hot noodles in front of her. As curious as she is, she knows it’s not smart to play the tape in the middle of the market. Not in Diamond City of all places. So she eats in silence, watching the activity around her in the busy market. She knows she’s stalling, but it’s hard to face Nick with everything that has happened the past couple of days. 

But she can’t avoid him forever.

When she finishes her noodles she walks across the market. Past Swatters with Moe spouting his baseball nonsense and towards the corner street that leads to Valentine Detective Agency. In the alleyway, two men stand working maintenance on the greenhouse fan. 

“What? You mean the Railroad? That’s a fairy tale man.” Cara overhears the one welding say as she walks by. “They don’t exist.” 

She pauses for a moment, then slows her steps, tries not to look too obvious. She waits to hear more, but an eyebot passing through the same street blasting the lyrics to a tired old song prevents her from hearing more.

“they call me the wanderer. Yeah, the wanderer. I roam around, around, around, around –“ 

By the time the bot passes and the music fades into the distance, she only catches the tail end of the other man’s reply, “Follow the Freedom Trail.” 

“The hell is that supposed to mean? Forget it, that kind of talk is gonna get you snatched up by the synths.” 

Cara wants to ask more, but knows better. People in the city are far too distrusting, full of Institute paranoia. So she walks to the alcove where Nick’s door awaits her. 

But she stands there for a minute, hand hesitating on the door knob and the holotape heavy in her pocket. As much as she wants to go chasing after the little red “A” and “7”, she knows it is not her top priority. The rings on her finger are heavier than the tape and the mystery. Her son and the challenge of the Glowing Sea are first: they have to be. 

One step at a time, she reasons. She knows if she works with Nick she’ll be able to prepare for finding Virgil. So she opens his door.


	5. Chapter 5

**November 25, 2287**  
  
Dr. Crocker is a dead man – overdosed on psycho. So much for not adding to the body pile, Cara thinks grimly.  
  
Nick is explaining everything to Dr. Sun and security, all while Cara stares at the remains of Earl Sterling. Ellie wasn’t wrong when she said it was unfortunate most of their cases concluded like this: too late to help and right on time to clean up the mess. Just like Marty and the gold grasshopper statue he died for. How, like Marty, Earl’s case file has a distinct end result of death: both his and Crocker’s.  
  
And for a moment she wonders at her own ongoing case. Maybe her’s will end the same way, stamped in red and marked with the body count she racked up trying to find her son. She thinks of Kellogg and the trail of death he left in his wake after his family was murdered. She wants to deny it and say she’s nothing like that man, except she knows it would be a lie. A month after the vault and she’s toeing the line dangerously close.  
  
Funny how it all happened so fast.  
  
Kellogg, Bobbie, Crocker, a score of raiders: didn’t matter if they had it coming, she still killed them. That blood was on her hands.  
  
She remembers the nights Nate would wake up screaming – horrified by all he had witnessed – and how he would cry about the blood stains that never washed out. Now she finally understands her husband’s pain, and like so many things it’s all too late. There’s a small pang in her chest and she wishes she could have offered something more comforting in those moments. She wonders if anything could have even been comforting.  
  
With a hand on her shoulder, Nick pulls her from her thoughts. Security is beginning to make arrangements for the bodies and it’s time to leave the cellar. Worry is in the yellow glow of his eyes as he asks her if she’s alright.  
  
Of course she lied. “Yeah, Nick, I’m good.”  
  
The late evening air is a vast improvement from the dingy cellar that held the stench of death. Even the detective agency, with the stale scent of cigarette smoke and burnt coffee, is a much appreciated change of scenery when they returned.  
  
“That wraps up another one, I guess.” Ellie says, passing a small bag of caps into Cara’s hands. She's beyond denying the motivation of getting paid these days. The power armor isn't going to fix itself and ammo isn't cheap.  
  
She thought the jobs would be better; do some good to clear her recent bad karma. Turns out it wasn’t so simple.  
  
At least Travis’s adventure had turned out alright in the end. Vadim walked out alive and Travis started becoming a better radio host. One good ending among a dozen bad.  
  
Doesn’t help the hollow feeling in her chest when she sees Ellie stamp Earl’s folder in red. A final permanent mark.  
  
Ellie is sifting through the filing cabinet, for another growing cold case to hand them, when Cara notices the new frequency on her pip-boy. She’s switching it on before she announces it to the others.  
  
“This is an emergency broadcast.” It starts and she’s reminded of the Brotherhood outside of Cambridge. There's gunfire in the background of the broadcast.  
  
“Ada, loop this message,” the male voice asking for help finishes before a distinctly robotic voice replies.  
  
“Sounds like serious trouble.” Nicks says as Cara switches the radio off when the message begins another loop.  
  
It’s trouble she can’t say “no” to.

* * *

**December 2, 2287**

She inhales deeply, steeling her nerves, then begins the long walk into the belly of the beast that is the Mechanist’s lair. Down the corridor past the security door Ada opened with technology even she barely understands.

“The commonwealth is right to fear people like you. People who have no respect for human life.” An eyebot shouts at her with the Mechanist’s voice. A long monolog that Cara cuts short with a few well-placed bullets when the Mechanist starts talking about his “solemn vow”.

She thinks of Jezebel and her definition of “help”. The Mechanist doesn’t know how wrong they are.

She proceeds through the underbelly of the factory. Walks past the assembly line and eliminates the Scrapbots and Junkbots that cross her path. She makes progress, but comes to a halt as she reaches the hallway lined with cages. It seems out of place for a RobCo assembly factory.

Dead ghouls lay scattered in the cages and some are strapped into stretchers manned by Robobrains; however Cara doesn’t think they’re recent arrivals at the factory. A stone plummets in her stomach as realization clicks like a light switch.

Experiments. Human experiments.

When the elevator doors open to reveal the research wing she’s faced with a scene from a horror movie: The brain extractions, the transcripts of forgotten torture on an old terminal, the hallway of incinerators.

The smell of two century old formaldehyde turns out to be more than a slight tickle against her gag reflex. The offensive odor and the sight of the wall of human brains sends her head spinning, resulting in her bowed forward as she loses her lunch.

“Are you sick?” Ada asks, a hand on her back in an attempt to comfort.

“No – I. I just…,” Cara replies, acid on her tongue, gesturing to the room – the wall. “This is monstrous.” _Idiot_ , she calls herself. _Where did you think the brains came from?_ She drags the back of her hand over her mouth. A pang of embarrassment settles over her as she remembers Bedford: ugly tears and hiccupping breath. _Pull it together. You’ve seen raiders with worse taste in decoration._

“I think I understand. Sometimes I wish that Jackson had programmed me with my personality mode set permanently to disabled so I wouldn’t feel so upset.” Ada replies, grabbing at the only attempt at comfort and relation she knows.

“That’s the thing, Ada.” Cara says, trying not to look at the puddle at her feet and refusing to look at the wall of jars. “People aren’t machines. You can’t just disable feeling or free will.”

She allows herself a deep breath, steels her nerves, and presses onward. Now is not the time for 200 year old crimes and cruelties. Right now she needs to stop the source of the murderous robots.

And all because she just can’t say “No” to people in need.

* * *

“Halt, miscreant.” The Mechanist commands as the panels lift up. He stands behind the glass of the control room, posed with hands on hips and accuses Cara of a “reign of terror”. It sounds like a speech stolen from an Unstoppables comic and Cara finds her patience running thin. After everything – the Rust Devils, the Robobrains, the trail of death – this person thinks she’s going to stand there and take it?

Well they’ve got another thing coming.

“Look pal, your robots have gone rogue! They’re killing people, not helping!” She shouts over the monolog.

“Silence, Scourge!” He shouts. “I will not rest until I see the commonwealth free of you!”

The room around her springs to life, the pods in the front hiss steam as they release the first wave of Scrapbots. While the robots begin their start-up sequence, Cara notices the platforms on the floor sinking down to bring in whatever is waiting on the assembly floor.

She pulls her pistol and shoots into the glass three times, each bullet catching in the protective military grade barricade. Frustrated, she goes about the business of wiping out an army: Turretbots, Junkbots, and a swarm of Eyebots rigged to explode. As if keeping up with wave after wave of machines wasn’t enough, the traps start activating.

Cara slides along the concrete floor, like sliding for home plate, when the tesla coils spark in wild bursts around the room. She hides under the stairs – cornering herself to escape being cooked like a fish.

“Watch your step!” The Mechanist warns, the hint of a boastful smile within their tone.

It’s a stupid mistake: to make herself so vulnerable for a moment’s safety. The next wave of robots enter and Cara has to scramble to climb the scaffolding stairs to escape being bombarded in the corner.

“This facility is at my command!” The Mechanist boasts. “For every robot you destroy, ten more will come!”

It would have been threating if the mainframe hadn’t chosen that moment to inform them both that the building is switching to reserve power. It would actually be funny if she wasn’t about to be pummeled to death by some unholy concoction of assaultron and mr. handy parts in the meantime.

The pistol clicks three times in her hands and she curses as she quickly ejects the empty cartridge, the metal dropping to the floor while she reaches into her belt for one of her spares. She frowns when she realizes it’s her last clip. She doesn’t have enough ammo to last. She’ll run out of ammo or the Mechanist will run out of robots.

For a split second she wonders why it seems like she’s the only one fighting. At the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by the husks of destroyed robots, Ada stands in emergency shut-down mode. She wasn’t quick enough to escape the tesla coils.

Knowing she’s on her own, Cara reloads with quick hands. The last two months a kind of trial by fire to get her to the gun proficiency she’s at.

Eleven bullets left. _Make them count_ , she thinks as she takes aim. She fires, putting another bullet in the robot and finishing it off before it skewers her with bladed arms.

“Damnit, Sparks! Throw everything at her!” The Mechanist shouts. Something akin to a dozen maintenance robots enter through the double doors. A last resort. They’re both on their last legs then.

Suddenly she's on the floor of the metal walkway. For a disorientating moment she blinks away the stars in her vision, but then she hears the shrill beep and release of steam and she knows what happened. A bot with forklift hands had rammed into her side from behind and it's about to bludgeon her while she's down. She flails her arms up, but her gun is missing. The bot whacks downward and she feels something in her arm give with a sickening _snap_.

Cara screams, cradles her broken arm close to her chest as the bot winds back for another strike. Wide eyed, she looks around for the pistol and it's a few feet from where she fell on the walkway. She lunges for it, crying out as she moves the broken arm, and avoiding the bot's arm as it whacks onto the walkway with a loud clang as metal hits metal. With the gun in her good hand she raises it and fires: once, twice, three times. 

The bot drops, skids off the metal walkway and falls to the floor below. Only eight bullets left…

She scrambles to her feet before the next bots overwhelm her. Her breath is heavy and she tastes something coppery on her tongue. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears and knows she’s been shot a few times between waves. Nothing adds up to anything good. She pulls a stimpack from her coat, hoping that it will fix her bad arm at least until a doctor can look at it properly. She just has to hold out a little bit longer.

She’s about ready to apply the stim when, like a blessing, the mainframe blares: “Warning! Power failure in ten…”

She just has to beat the clock now. Easier said than done as a garbage collecting robot flails heavy arms into her back, the sneaky jet propelled bastard. The blow knocks the stimpack from her hand and, for a dumb moment, she watches as it bounces on the walkway and falls between the grate to the pavement below.

The robot winds back for another attack and her instincts of preservation kick in as she lifts the gun back up.

Five bullets remaining.

Over the sound of blood pumping in her ears and metal hitting concrete, she can hear the Mechanist barking orders at Sparks. The mainframe is still shutting down.

“Six.”

She runs for the stimpack, nearly sprints past a robot that takes another swing at her. She’s made it this far, endured bullets and explosions, she refuses to be clobbered to death.

When she finally jams the stim in the vein in her upper arm she’s down to her last two bullets.

“One.”

Her clip runs dry. The last of the robots falls with a final crash of metal on concrete just as the lights cut out.

The Mechanist curses, then orders an eyebot to do something. It answers with a series of beeps as Cara walks over to Ada, pulling a sparking repair kit from her jacket. She works with her good arm, waiting for the drugs to kick in and knit her broken one back into working order.

She’s thankful for the stretching moments of stillness until the emergency power kicks in.

“Look, why don’t you just come down here and talk?” Cara says, more annoyed than pleading. Because she won’t plead to some nutter who doesn’t bother to realize their army of robots is ripping their way through settlements.

But Cara doesn’t know what to be more surprised at: that the Mechanist agrees or that the Mechanist removes her helmet.

“There,” the Mechanist, Isabel, says with her voice shaking and uncertain in the absence of the mask. “Now we both know who we’re dealing with.” She begins lamenting on her failure, fidgeting with her hands and refusing to make eye contact.

Now Cara sees this woman for who she is, and a part of her anger subsides. “I think you’re confused about why I’m here.” Cara says, then explains the problems that have gone unnoticed: The flaw in the directive.

“My friends, they were simple traders. All dead at the hands of your Robots.” Ada adds when Cara finishes.

“That can’t be right. They’re supposed to save lives.” Isabel replies. She continues to fidget with the helmet in her hands and avoids eye contact with both Cara and Ada, preferring to look into the reflective surface of the eyes.

“Call it user error then. One of your Robobrains admitted it: They’re killing people to save them.” Cara replies, but there’s no bite behind her words. She needs this woman to understand. Denial will get them nowhere.

“They can’t alter their own programming.” Isabel replies matter-of-fact.

Cara steps forward, hand outstretched, and she blocks the woman’s gaze with the mask: forcing her to look up instead. “The Robobrains were never safe. You cannot strip them of human nature. People are not programmable machines.”

_If you put a person into a robot, does it cease to be a person?_ She thinks of Nick and knows her answer: A person is a person no matter what form.

“But the logic,” Isabel begins to reply, brow furrowing deep in thought.

“They’re saving by killing.” Ada repeats.

“No.” Isabel replies, the beginning of horrified realization. “No, I was hoping it was an issue with their memory wipes, but… It’s there. I can see it now.”

“Maybe that’s why you don’t stick human brains in robots.” Cara replies, she's trying to keep the bite out of her voice but her arm is throbbing and she is tired.

“The hero unknowingly became the villain…” Isabel says. “I only wanted to help. And robots are all I know.”

“Your help cost lives.” Ada responds.

“Not helping, Ada.” Cara says. For a dark moment Cara questions Ada’s loyalty: has enough clarity to wonder if Ada plans to attack now that her end goal is right in front of her. Her only mission was stopping her friend’s killer. And Cara is in no shape to stop her should she attack Isabel.

The Mechanist feels it too and launches into an apology, rambling and unsure of who she should be attempting eye contact with. “This doesn’t have to end in violence.” She says with a waver of her voice.

Kellogg, Bobbi, Dr. Crocker. Isabel will not be another body on the pile.

“I’m not here to kill you.” Cara states. “I’m only here to get you and your robots to stand down.”

“Done. Consider it done.” And then she’s rambling again, relief radiating off of her as she passes the password into Cara’s hand along with the helmet. She would rather have the mainframe be in Cara’s hands.

When Isabel climbs the stairs to the control room, Ada says, “So the Mechanist really was misguided.” It’s more statement than question.

“She made a mistake and she clearly feels bad about it.” Cara answers anyway.

“She’s a biological wildcard. She must have known the risks of the Robobrains.” Ada states.

“No Ada, I really don’t think she knew. To her a life saved was a life saved.”

“Many good people endured suffering at the hands of the Mechanist.” There’s an argument pressing in her tone again.

“She has to live with that guilt, Ada.” Cara replies carefully. “But I think she’s good at heart and that she’ll make good on her promise to make things right again.”

“I have a certain understanding of guilt. While it is not the justice I had hoped for, it will suffice.”

Ada’s answer is a relief. “So, what will you do now, Ada?”

“I do not know. My friends are dead and I…I am at a loss.”

Cara looks up at the control room and sees Isabel working on the mainframe; sees her trying to get her signal router restarted to start calling in the robot patrols still out. She sees the little yellow eyebot called Sparks and gives an idea some thought.

“How about this, why don’t you stay here? You could help her track down the rogue robots.” Cara suggests. ‘It’s better than leaving Isabel alone here.’

“That I could do. But are you sure I will not be of better service to you traveling at your side?” Ada replies.

Cara thinks of the power armor waiting for her at the Red Rocket. The jumble of armor she and Ada pulled off the Rust Devils when they rescued Jezebel. It hadn’t been easy dragging the heavy parts back home to the garage, but Ada’s help had been crucial.

But she knows that is as much help as they can give each other. Knowing she has the parts for a full suit of armor to tackle the Glowing Sea with is a weight off her mind. With the Mechanist no longer a threat, she can get back to the search for Shaun.

Ada’s mission is here now: stopping the robots so that they don’t kill more innocent people.

“I think you’ll be more of a help stopping the remaining robots with Isabel than if you were to come with me.” She finally settles on saying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liked the Automatron dlc, but I always thought it was a little unsatisfying how things end with Ada. Like yeah she can continue to be your companion, just I never found her final bits of dialogue satisfying (especially if Isabel is left alive at the end). I figured it would be more satisfying to have Ada "team up" with Isabel instead of the game sending me on all the rogue robot radiant quests


	6. Chapter 6

**December 8, 2287**

She’s at the bar in Bunker Hill, again. It’s becoming a common theme with her: finding herself seated in some rusty patchwork stool with a bottle of questionable contents. But she figures after the day she’s had she at least deserves to work her way south of sober before crawling into the shack of a hotel above the bar. 

It has been that kind of day. 

Dogmeat lays at her feet next to the stool. She picked him up on her last visit to Sanctuary. It was supposed to be a quick check-in, but nothing ever just went the way it was supposed to. 

Preston didn’t like the radio silence. His solution: retake the old headquarters of the Minutemen, someplace called “The Castle”. Cara understood his thinking, but now wasn’t the most opportune time. A settlement so close to the sea meant a Mirelurk infestation. After dealing with Graygarden’s water, she has an idea of how difficult it will be to win back the abandoned fort. It will require resources and more man power than they currently have.

Except he didn’t share her hesitation. After settling matters with the rogue robots, he expected her to jump to the next task; not spend days repairing power armor for the trek into the Glowing Sea.

He found excuses to visit her in the garage, gave her a list of settlements that had set off flares recently. He reminded her of her duty and guilt compelled her to answer the calls.  
  
She takes a long drink from the bottle. Most days she hates that she can’t just say “no” to people. 

She didn’t expect her Pip-Boy to send her on a scavenger hunt on her way back home from Greentop. She should have known to curse her curiosity when she traced the signal from body to body, collecting forgotten holotags and holotapes. She had figured she’d return them to Paladin Danse back in Cambridge, he seemed like the kind of person who would know what to do with them.  
  
But no, she had to complicate matters by tracing the coordinates to a remote bunker in the northern end of the Commonwealth. With the holotags in her pocket she wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to find either. Maybe just another body; hopefully less mangled in its stages of decay than the others had been. 

Of all the possibilities, she certainly hadn’t expected a living person: silver haired and wild eyed. 

She handed him back the holotags and the tapes she recovered; gave him closure and he thanked her for it. 

She isn’t fond of the Brotherhood. Paladin Danse seemed okay enough, but something about the order set off warning bells. It didn’t exactly help her gut feeling when she came across patrols, the armored soldiers jeering at her to “move along” and not to meddle in Brotherhood business. Fine by her. Most people seemed to think they didn’t belong either. 

They had swept into the Commonwealth in that floating fortress of theirs and demanded cooperation at gunpoint: sweeping up valuable salvage and anything they felt entitled to in the name of contraband. It felt too close to the old world military: soldiers stationed at street corners and inside every store. Eyes everywhere and nobody to stop the abuse of power when whim came to them.

But pity had compelled her to say, “You could always return to the Brotherhood. They’re here in the Commonwealth.”

He refused, insisted it has been too long. He won’t go back, but also wouldn't leave with her when she offered him a place among the Minutemen. He made it clear he wants nothing to do with the world outside of his door.

She left Paladin Brandis's bunker with a fusion core, but it isn’t a satisfying reward. It doesn’t feel like a handful of bottle caps pushed into her hands, payment for services well-earned in bullets and blood. This feels like theft from a lone man left isolated in a bunker.

She stops at her third drink; remembering that Dogmeat can’t drag her drunken ass to the hotel, so it’s better to stop while she’s ahead. She pays her tab and stumbles up the stairs of the shack, looking more drunk than she actually is.

The night is long. She finds distractions from sleep in the sound of gunshots in the distance of the city, wonders if it’s raiders or mutants. Bunker Hill is still a trading hub in the late hours of the night: Caravans return from their circuits and noisily pass through the gates. She watches people pass through the crack in the curtain covering the doorway. There’s activity in the other rooms of the hotel shack too; distracting since the walls are not truly solid.

She plays with the rings on her finger, twisting them idly as she thinks about what she should be doing. Nick is still waiting for her, and she would go now if she only had the fusion cores to make the trip possible. She’ll need more than the one taken from the Brotherhood survivor.

Preston wants her retake the Castle, she knows. He wants her to do more for the settlements, the people he’s put her in charge of. He wants her to be a leader and she doesn’t know if the right to command is in her. She doesn’t know if she even wants to either.

She flips through her bag and pulls a battered holotape from one of the pockets. She jams it into the slot on her Pip-Boy, but it isn’t Nate’s voice that comes from the speakers.  
  
“Wake up Commonwealth.” A woman says and Cara realizes it’s the tape she picked up from Becky back in Diamond City. 

The tape is nearly finished when a man lifts the bed sheet nailed to the wall of her shack. He startles her, her hand jumping to the pistol next to her bed before he speaks.  
  
“Mind keeping it down? Some of us are trying to sleep.” He says, voice groggy and sunglasses haphazardly hanging on his face. 

“Sorry,” she apologizes, hitting the stop button and the voice dies mid-sentence.

“Gee thanks.” The man says as he disappears behind the sheet again.

She settles back into the mattress and mindlessly pets Dogmeat till she finally manages to fall asleep herself. 

The following morning she’s sitting at the bar again, though this time it’s not to feed bad developing habits. She sits with a plate of day old stew for breakfast while the bartender argues with his son. 

“What do you think?” A caravan hand in the stool next to her asks, gesturing with his fork at the bickering pair. 

“Helping synths is noble.” She says, and the younger of the two feels vindicated. 

“See Dad, I’m not alone in this.” He says and the argument continues.

“No fear for the big bad boogie man of the commonwealth?” The man sitting next to her asks, gloved fingers wiggling for mock effect. He seems familiar, like she’s met him before, before she realizes he’s the man she woke up the previous night.

Her shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “They’re pretty high up on my shit list.”

His lips pull in the slightest direction of a smile. “Yeah, you and everyone else in the good old 'wealth." 

The conversation ends there as they both finish their meals, Cara leaves enough in her bowl for Dogmeat to eat as well. Once he’s finished licking the dish clean, she places it back on the counter and rises from the stool. 

She’s halfway to the gate when someone to her back says: “Follow the Freedom Trail.” 

An echo of what she heard in Diamond City. She stops and looks back for the source, but among the bustle of the caravan workers she doesn’t know who said it. The other man is still seated at the bar, but she catches him looking in her direction. It's unsettling, the way she feels his stare from beyond the sunglasses. She turns and continues for the gate.

Outside the gate she sees the line in red, and thinks of the common. The red “7” and “A”: some lessons she just can’t learn and she doesn’t have nine lives to burn. She curses herself all the way back to the beginning of the trail, curses as she blows a path through supermutants to get the rest of the code, and curses when she stops in front of an old church.  
  
She has half a mind to wonder what she’s about to get herself into as she shoots her way through the ghouls. 

She should be acquiring fusion cores. She needs to look for Virgil so that she can rescue Shaun.

But maybe the Railroad is a better bet than trying to fight her way to the Institute alone. 

Preston would ask her to fix more settlements and hunt mirelurks along the coast. She’s proven to not be much of a leader in the past couple of months.

Paladin Danse asked her to become a soldier, an offer she refused. 

She wonders what the Railroad will ask her to be and wonders if it’s any better.


	7. Chapter 7

**December 10, 2287**

“Deacon, why are you giving this to me?” she asks when Deacon places a dead man’s gun into her hands. 

“Call it a show of faith.” Deacon replies. 

She isn’t sure if he’s running this job out of necessity or another motive she cannot read off of him. It certainly isn’t out of any kind of desire. In the tunnels of the Slocum Joe’s, in the heart of Switchboard, in this place where he names each dead body they come across: he’s paler than he was in the floodlights of the catacombs under the church. 

It reminds her of herself, walking into Sanctuary for the first time and facing the howling ghosts.

So she doesn’t argue. She puts the gun in her holster, the trusty 10mm still in her hands. He says something about a man named Tom and this time she doesn’t ask for the echo of “You’ll know him when you meet him”.

Then Deacon shoves a clunky piece of tech into her hands: the prototype. Their goal. She holds it in her hand, clumsy like a child who does not know if they’ve received a gift or not. It feels like the handful of caps in the museum several months ago. The gun was already too much.

“You should take it. Desdemona is expecting you.” She tells him, holding it out for him to take back.

But his arms don’t move to accept it. “Yes, but that’s your ticket in. You give that to Des, and she has to let you into our merry little band.” He says it like it could be so simple. 

“Isn’t trust earned and all that shit? You said it earlier, too much information too fast burned you guys before.” She replies.

“Do you have the time to wait and eventually, maybe, become a full member? Sometimes you can’t stand on ceremony.” He says, but looks at her for a long, hard minute from behind the glasses. 

“You don’t know a thing about me.” She says and knows it’s not wholly true. 

_‘Half the commonwealth is flying her flag, Des.’_ He’d said. But it wasn’t her flag. Weeks of radio silence and it was barely her job. The Castle was still a home to Mirelurks. Two wedding rings on her finger and her son in the Institute, what did he know about that? 

“You can’t trust everyone.” She finally says and it seems to be a kind of answer he was looking for.

“Bring it back to HQ and then you can decide on what you want to do.” He says, walking past her and back out the vault.

He doesn’t lead her back to the tunnel. Together they continue through a maze of hallways, and when a cryo mine goes off at their feet – ice shards ripping into the denim of her jeans as the 10mm flies out of her grip – she grabs for the dead man’s gun at her hip to shoot the gen twos that pour into the hallway. 

The gun is lighter than her own modified gun built on the scraps of Sanctuary. It fits in her hand better too, she realizes, as she lines up shots to the worn patches in the synth’s ballistic armor.

It isn’t until they’re in the elevator that she realizes that her gun is sitting among the sparking remains of the synths in the hallway of the Switchboard. 

But the dead man’s gun fits into her holster better than her old gun did and she decides it's not worth going back for.

* * *

**December 16, 2287**

“If you ever feel like using something better than that little peashooter,” Glory tells her late one night on the mattresses of HQ, “you know where to find me.”

“Glory, I can barely lift that thing outside of power armor.” Cara replies, gesturing to Glory’s minigun that sits across from her on the mattress.

“Weak.” Glory teases, lips just ghosting the edge of a Nuka Cola bottle.

She likes Glory. When their paths cross they always find something to talk about. The Railroad’s “Angel of Death” and “Problem Solver”: The only two heavy’s left in HQ.

They pass small talk and try to ignore the marks each had to place on the chalkboard. Augusta is gone and Stanwix is relocated.

Glory spent her day running packages far sooner than the time table recommended. Some farmers apparently fired on her and the rest was a shit show if Desdemona’s chain smoking was anything to go by.

She knows it’s bad enough for Des to pull Deacon from her shadow to run damage control.

But neither of them talk about their troublesome day. Cara doesn’t talk about how Augusta has become a raider pit or how the dead were being used as Deathclaw bait. And Glory doesn’t talk about shooting farmers and traumatized synths.

Instead they talk about gun mods and debate the best way to cook radstag until the later hours of the evening and sleep starts to settle over most of HQ.

When she sleeps, it’s in a twisted position for the greater part of the night with Dogmeat curled up against the back of her knees. His warmth a familiar comfort within of HQ’s anxious walls.

In the morning she’ll head back to Red Rocket. The Power Armor is still waiting and there aren’t any more excuses. Tom gave her a handful of fusion cores, the journey ahead of her is finally possible.

In the morning she’ll tell Deacon. Railroad’s always under fire, but the biggest blazes are out for now.

In the morning she’ll go to Diamond City to see Nick.


	8. Chapter 8

**December 20, 2287**

She hates power armor. The stupid metal hands can barely pull the trigger on the rifle, which she’s only using because they sure as hell don’t fit around her tiny pistol. 

The suit is making for a damn difficult job of taking care of the swarm of stingwings that are on top of her and Nick at the moment.

It doesn’t help that the visor cuts into her peripheral vision, or that her mobility is being halted by how quickly the machine around her will respond. The rifle’s kick feels too strong, rocking into her even against the brace of the machine, and she can feel her feet sink into the muck of the land.

The rapid click of the suit’s geiger counter and the buzz of the swarm are thunderous in her ears as panic begins to grip her chest.

It feels like Concord. Raiders screaming while she swings a minigun at a reptile standing twice her height. 

_Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger._

“You alright, kid?” Nick asks when the last of the bugs lay dead and she’s still too quiet. Trying not to think about Deathclaws and her first day out of the Vault. Her thoughts too focused on catching her breath as her shaky fingers go through the mechanic motions of reloading the rifle. 

“Yeah. Fine.” She replies tightly, trying to keep the panic from her voice. 

“If you want to head back,” he starts to offer but she’s quick to interrupt.

“No. No, we’re almost there.” She has not fought her way through this hellscape to turn around now. Through swarms of bugs, ghouls, and more radscorpions than she ever cared to see. The Children of Atom said the cave was just over the crater. She cannot – _will not_ – go back after coming so close. 

Not after Tom gave her the last of the Railroad’s fusion core supply for this trip. They’re expecting answers from her too. Answers she needs.

She is not fresh from the Vault any more, she cannot afford act like she is any longer.

She swings the rifle over her shoulder by the strap and uses both of her now free hands to try pulling her foot loose from the muck of the green pool she backed into during the fight. With effort, her foot comes free with a squelch as the mud rushes to refill the hole she created. 

With the muck caked onto the metal of her suit, they begin to wander deeper into the landscape. Through choking green smog that she can taste even through her helmet’s filters.

* * *

It’s nearly nightfall when they reach the edge of the glowing sea. Just into the place where it’s on the better side of questionable that the air is breathable without the helmet. It’s the closest place to safe and she peels her head free of the helmet, breathing in semi-fresh air for the first time all day. 

Virgil isn’t who she expected. Then again people in the wasteland are rarely who she expects them to be; but a supermutant was not one of them. 

But now her path is clear again. No more wandering and collecting resources for journey towards an unknown location. 

She needs a courser chip: a clear defined goal. One that her pip-boy will lead her directly to in a game of marco polo. 

In the meantime, Somerville isn’t terribly far. She can dump the armor in the settlement for now, close enough for her to reach when she needs to go back to the cave. 

The sooner she’s free of the armor, the better.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* Depictions of violence and mild gore in this chapter.

**December 23, 2287**

She pushes the button for the elevator and waits, listening for its decent behind the heavy metal door. Around her the air is thick with smoke and spent gunpowder; all mixed with a smell of ozone like spent energy cells. Below her feet are several floors of massacred Gunners – _most_ of which she is not responsible for.

It isn’t until she and Nick are inside and the door slides shut behind them that she pauses to consider her willingness to enter the two century old elevator as gears grind and the box lurches into a climb. But what had she expected, it was two hundred years past due for maintenance.

The thought is almost enough make her laugh, her nerves sinking deeper in her stomach as she rises to meet the Institute’s greatest destructive force. 

_Those Gunners had a rocket launcher and weren’t able to kill it_ , she thinks. Her thumb traces the outline of the two wedding bands on her finger around her grip on the gun. _This is the only way to get to Shaun_ , she reminds herself.

“You alright?” Nicks asks at her side, eyes drifting to Deliverer in her hands.

“I’m good, Nick.” She replies and, following his gaze, realizes his concern is from the slight shake in her hands. She tries and fails to steady them as the elevator shifts again. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m alright,” he replies while securing a clip into his gun. The floor under their feet rocks to a shaky stop and a long minute draws before the metal doors begin to shift open. “Never a dull moment traveling with you.” 

“Fort Hagan, the Glowing Sea, and now a Gunner stronghold: we really do go to the nicest places, Nick.” 

The doors open to a room of searchlights, a massive staircase, and the voices echoing from the floor above them. Together, guns out and ready, they climb.

“I don’t know. I swear I don’t – “ A Gunner says before a shot from a laser rifle echoes down the stairs. 

“I will get into that room,” a voice says in a monotone that she almost mistakes for boredom.

She knows Coursers are advanced Institute operatives. Even still, she had anticipated something like the Gen ones and twos that had guarded Kellogg and patrolled the Switchboard: full of metallic obedience. She did not expect the Courser to sound _human_. 

She knows the stories and rumors spread in every major settlement: synth spies and agents everywhere. Why didn’t she think Coursers would be the same? What made her think they wouldn’t they be as human as Nick and Glory?

“You can take her,” another Gunner says, voice rising in clear panic. “Take anything you want, but I don’t have the password.”

“Institute property is not yours to bargain with.” The Courser says. There is a heavy smack that echoes into the stairwell before a heavy _thud_ , which Cara assumes is a body hitting the ground. 

“One of you has the password.” The Courser says. 

Cara stops at the top of the steps, hands still shaking around Deliverer. For once she would actually prefer facing down a Deathclaw in half rusted out armor and a weathered minigun. She knows enough bullets will kill a Deathclaw; the Courser she isn’t so sure about. 

In the shadow of the hallway she can see into the room. There are three Gunners: the dead one, body laying facedown and smoking from a laser round. One is slumped against the wall, a smear of blood behind him, as he weakly wipes at a bloody nose. The third is on the floor, still alive, but curled in on himself and clutching at ribs that Cara is willing to bet caps are broken.

There is also the Courser: as human as H2 and Glory. He stands, back to the door, and clothed in some black leather coat that ends at the knees. The laser rifle he holds casually at his side.

“Institute bastards,” the Gunner spits around his injured nose. “Fuckin’ synths think you can –”

Viper fast, the Courser’s arm shoots out and a rifle shot fires. The Gunner does not speak again, falling side-ways on impact; smoke rising from the hole in his head. 

“It's a shame you commonwealth rabble have no manners.” The Courser says in the same dull monotone. 

Her heart jumps to her throat when he speaks again. 

“Perhaps our friend at the door will have the password.” For a moment she hopes he is speaking to someone else, until he clarifies, “Yes I know you’re there.”

A smarter person would’ve run.

Deacon would’ve told her to.

She walks past the double doors, trying to suppress the shake in her hands, and with Nick a few steps behind her. 

“What is your business here?” the Courser asks.

The words fall from her mouth quite quickly, “I’m here to pick up a delivery. Two large pepperonis and a calzone, with a side of fuck you.” 

Deacon would’ve gotten a kick out of that. MacCready too, come to think of it. The Courser, however, barely reacts; his hand flexes around the grip of his rifle.

“If you’re not here for the synth, then you’re here for me.” He says. Then as though noticing Nick standing behind her for the first time says, “There were no additional units assigned to this mission. What are your protocols, unit.”

“What?” Cara asks.

“I was not addressing you.” The Courser snaps. Reflexively she shrinks back.

“Ah, well this unit doesn’t answer to you.” Nick replies, golden eyes narrowed. 

“I believe you’re malfunctioning.” He replies and takes a step forward.

Cara matches his step, arms moving to bring Deliverer level with his chest. “Leave Nick alone.” She says, braver than she feels and her knuckles go white around the gun. 

“Nick?” He asks, before a realization settles in. “Ah, the one left loose in Diamond City. I’ve always wondered why Ayo has not sanctioned a retrieval for you; our operations pass through the city often enough as it is. I wonder what he’ll think when I bring back two missing synths instead.” 

“What other synth?” Cara asks.

“Misplaced Institute property.” He replies. His eyes flick briefly to the side where a shaded window is. “But that does not concern you. Now, answer my question: what do you want?” In his words she hears a hint of frustration bleed through the monotone in his voice. She finds it does nothing to ease the pit of nerves her stomach has become. 

Still firmly grasping the gun, she says, “I need the chip in your head, buddy.” 

There is a quick flash of something that could almost pass for surprise on his face before it returns to a mask of neutral. “Well, it appears we have a problem then.” His right hand moves, not to meet the other hand that holds the rifle, but to his belt.

Then he disappears.

And Cara stands as frozen as the room around her. Beside her she hears Nick remark, “Now that’s just great.” 

She’s about to find her words when suddenly time picks up again. A laser shot hits her in the side, her armor taking the brunt of the blow – she’ll have to thank Tinker Tom for ballistic weave later, if she survives that long – and instinct kicks in. 

She fires her pistol twice in the direction from where she thinks the shots came from and is not surprised when both hit the wall, bouncing off the shuttered blinds of the window.

The Gunners couldn’t kill the Courser with a missile launcher and she expects to do it with a pistol. If she weren’t about to die she would find it funnier.

Another shot hits her thigh: burns through the denim of her jeans and a swear passes her lips, loudly. A firm hand grabs her by the back of her jacket and pulls her past the heavy doors once more. With her back to wall beside the door frame she gives Nick a wild eyed look. 

“What’s the plan?” Nicks shouts above the laserfire. 

“Don’t die.” She shouts and moves, firing blindly into the room once more.

“Might as well go looking for a needle in a haystack for all the good that’s doing us. Have any grenades?” He shouts back.

Her hand moves to her belt, fumbles and feels past ammo until she feels the material of the military ammo bag she’d scavenged. Her fingers pull at the buckle, something pops loose, and she feels inside and fingers curl around what she’s been looking for. “Just one,” she says.

“Make it count.”

She pulls the pin and throws. It’s a gamble, but she hopes the small quarters will work in her favor. 

There’s a distinct click as it bounces on the floor. A second passes, and then – 

Green and white hot plasma bathe the room.

When the glow subsides, Cara risks taking a look; leaning her body over from behind the door frame. And she can see the Courser now, leather jacket covered in an angry singe mark, as he throws something hard and sparking from his belt. 

She’s still standing there and looking when the Courser looks up, his icy expression now tinged with seething anger. The Courser shifts his stance and turns his rifle toward her before she has time to react.

The shot hits her shoulder as she tries to move back to cover. He’s visible now, but still much faster. Hell, he had essentially every advantage on her in terms of height, strength, speed, and training. 

The laser shot sizzles against her fortified jacket, but even ballistic weave has limits. It won’t take much more till he’s burning through the armor. 

“Didn’t kill him, but we can see him again.” She says to Nick before she moves to reenter the room.

“I’ve got your back.”

Together they run. Cara empties her pistol’s clip into the Courser, aiming for the compromised parts of his jacket. Shot after shot after shot. Until she pulls the trigger and nothing but a click follows. The Courser actually winces in pain, the first display of weakness she’s seen on his perfectly controlled features.

Nick runs past her, flanking and ducking behind the stairs when two laser shots retaliate and then fires back again.

The Courser shifts his stance and readjusts for the new assault. Turns his rifle towards her in rapid calculation before she has a chance to reload. Cara starts to brace for the laser shot when a loud crack that isn’t a laser round firing echoes around the room. Nick, with that small pipe pistol, somehow – miraculously – hit the laser rifle from his hand.

_So much for the top of the line in Institute technology_ , she thinks smugly.

It doesn’t prove to be much of an advantage when he rushes at her, however. When he takes a swing at her, powerfully engineered fists swinging for her head, she barely moves in time. Still hits her; knocking her sideways and she slides a few feet, debris slicing into the thinner spots of her armor. She can feel something embedded in the back of her leg, but doesn’t take the time to look. Instead she scrambles, tries to get a grip and get off the floor again. 

She’s on her knees by the time the Courser picks up his rifle again. She actually hears him growl in frustration and only then realizes that his rifle is damaged. Sparks shoot off from the sizable hole in the casing. The rifle falls back to the floor with a loud clatter. His attention turns, refocuses on her, and he advances. Even with Nick firing rounds off, the Courser is still on top of her before she’s on her feet. Nick comes out from behind the cover of the stairs, pipe pistol held up as he fires a few more shots that end up in the wall behind them. 

The Courser lashes out with a kick, knocking her arm out from under her and knocks Deliverer from her grip. The pistol skitters out of her reach and she does not have a chance to see where it lands as the Courser takes a second kick: the steel toe of his boot connecting with her ribs. She definitely feels something crack, the air drives out of her lungs, and when her vision refocuses she’s flat on the ground: Prone and vulnerable. 

The Courser stands with the heel of his foot aimed above her head.

For a second she has the clarity of mind to think, not for the first time, that perhaps this is where it ends. This Courser killed an entire battalion of Gunners and she’s about to be another body on the pile. 

The Gunner tower is as good a tomb as the Vault. 

Except Nick comes barreling into him. They both stumble back, momentum knocking them both to the ground. Nick is quick enough to remain on top; changes his grip on his gun and connects the stock of his pistol with the side of the Courser’s head. He manages two hits before the Courser grabs hold of the gun and they struggle for it. Nick wins, throws the pistol to keep if from the Courser, and Cara – gripping her ribs – gets back to her feet. 

The Courser, scowling, manages to throw Nick off of him. Cara quickly moves to pull Nick back to his feet. “Any ideas, Nick?” 

“No. I’ve heard of the Coursers, but I’ve never seen one. I also never heard about anyone killing one.”

“That is because the Institute does not fail,” The Courser replies, pulling himself back onto his feet as well. “We are the peak of technology, the best hope for humanity’s future, and we are not about to be defeated by commonwealth rabble and an obsolete model.” 

He continues waxing eloquent about the Institute’s power, but Cara stops paying attention. A few feet from the Courser’s boots is where Deliverer had fallen. Beside her, Nick moves his foot to reveal a knife from one of the Gunners. 

Without a word, with Nick steady on his feet again, and while the Courser is still too busy talking, Cara releases her grip on her ribs and dashes for her gun. The Courser sprints just as she moves. She dives for her pistol. Her fingers only just grab ahold of it when the Courser hits her from the side: the injured one. But she manages to hold on, even as she cries out in pain and the rest of her body hits the concrete floor. 

The Courser is about to hit her again when Nick takes a swing with the knife. His attention leaving her in order to deal with Nick. Cara fumbles with her belt, pulls a clip and tries to reload as quickly as she can.

The empty cartridge drops to the ground. She slides the clip into place – she hears Nick hit the ground – clicks the safety, cocks it, and looks up. She’s just in time to watch his advance in her direction. The knife is in the Courser’s hand and she raises her arms to aim. 

She fires point blank and tries to duck as the Courser’s fist swings towards her head. She feels the recoil shake her hands just as she feels a sting across her left brow as she ducks sideways. The adrenaline keeps her moving, shifting her feet under herself so she can stand before his next attack. Quick enough that she’s able to stumble backwards a few steps at least before his second swing rips into the arm of her jacket. But she’s still moving, lifting her arms up again to take aim, until her eye starts to sting.

She can’t tell the extent of the injury, but now is not the time to worry about the new rush of blood dripping down the side of her face. Keeping her eye shut, she tries to take aim; which is difficult to do with the new lack of depth perception. The Courser is fast, too fast, and she can’t aim as she fires off three shots.

_Miss. Miss. Miss._

The Courser winds back for another swing just as Nick barrels into him with a strangled yell. With no other weapon, he tries to grab and hold the Courser. Except it doesn’t go as well as the first time. The Courser twists quick enough to dodge and strikes a blow to Nick’s side, the knife slicing through the patchwork trench coat. 

The Courser grabs Nick as he falls, lifts him by the collar of his shirt and hauls him over the railing. Almost like he doesn’t weight anything. “I’ll deal with you next.” He says as he drops Nick down to the floor below the stairwell. 

Watching as he falls, Cara shouts “Nick!” and makes it three steps towards him before the next attack. Looking away from the Courser, even for a moment, is a mistake. He moves faster than anyone – anything – she’s seen before. Makes sense, after all he was built to be superior: the Institute’s ultimate weapon. 

From her blind side, he punches her with enough force to knock her down. She just hits the concrete when he kicks her again, square in the chest. She hears another loud crack: a tell-tale sign that at least another one of her ribs is broken.

Her chest radiates pain even before she registers that it’s difficult to breathe. Inhales shallow breath, trying to fill her lungs despite the pain. The heel of the Courser’s boot is still digging into her diaphragm. He looms over her, knife in hand and looking furious. 

He takes Deliverer from her hand and tosses it. She watches as it hits the chain-link wall and falls between the same gap past the railing that Nick had fallen between. He removes his heel from her diaphragm, but his knee comes to rest in its place: carefully pressing into the broken ribs. “How do you know about the chip?” the Courser asks. The monotone is completely gone from his voice, the anger only making him sound more human, but no less terrifying. 

“Fuck you,” she weakly chokes, trying to fight for breath. 

The Courser drives the blade deep into her shoulder. “How did you know?” He says as he gives the knife a sharp twist and Cara lets out a strangled scream. She manages to shake her head and he twists the blade back out. “How did you track me?” 

Frantically Cara grabs at his wrist. Anything to make him stop. He is too strong, however, and presses more weight down on her chest; cutting off her air again for good measure.

“I can end this quickly,” the Courser hisses, “or we can drag this out. How do you know?”

“Go to hell,” she cries between breaths. She can taste blood behind her words. 

Air burning in her chest she looks into the Courser’s green eyes. The eyes of the person about to kill her.

She lasted three months outside the Vault and now it’s all coming to an end in this room. If anything, she thinks, it’s long overdue. 

He plunges the knife into her opposite shoulder and she does nothing to refrain from screaming again. There isn’t any point. 

At least Preston could take over as General. There are enough settlements supporting the cause to keep him busy. At least the Railroad is used to losing members and putting out fires. It isn’t like the Institute doesn’t already know about them. They know how to lay low.

She wonders who will strike her name off the chalkboard. 

_Fixer_. There and gone in less than a month.

It’s a sad thought, but Carrington wasn’t wrong in his opinion about her after all. Too new to be of much help.

“I will return the synths regardless,” the Courser says and she knows that, ultimately, he’s right. “We will deal with any leaks. The only thing you’re doing is prolonging your own suffering.” For emphasis he gives the knife another slow twist. 

She’s about to tell him to go to hell again before a bullet rips through his head. The bullet isn’t accompanied by the loud pop of a gunshot. His green eyes go blank, begin to roll, and seconds slow to a crawl. 

His hand releases the knife and he falls sideways, landing on her bad shoulder. She starts to struggle under his weight but can't get him off of her as blood continues to pour out from the new hole in his head. Until another hand helps to lift his dead wight off. Looking up, she can see Nick helping; his metallic hand clutching Deliverer. 

“Are you alright?” He asks as they work together to get her free from under the body.

“Yeah,” Cara replies, pressing her hand into the open wound in her shoulder. The knife still plugs the other. She can see Nick's yellow eyes on the wound and says, “Just hurts.” 

She is just free of the courser's body when the slots on the wall open to reveal a woman behind them. “You actually killed him.” She says.

“Yeah,” Cara says, eyes looking back at the body slumped on the floor next to her again before looking back. “Can you open the door from in there?” 

“No, I can’t. But their leader had the password kept in that toolbox over there.”

Looking over, Cara can see the toolbox under the stairs. It’s out of reach. She’ll have to get up. With a groan she asks, “Can you help her get out, Nick?” 

It takes a couple of minutes, but Nick manages to get the door open. In the meantime, Cara pulls the knife from her shoulder and gets to work extracting the chip. He’s still within reach. Cracking open the skull takes more effort than she's comfortable expending, but it's easier working with the bullet wound. She gets her hard earned reward, thankfully undamaged from the courser's cause of death. The chip - a metallic dome structure encased in glass - is actually a lot larger than she originally imagined.

“I escaped about a week ago,” the synth says. Filling the silence as she watches Cara work. “I figured they would send a Courser, I just...I didn’t think he would catch up that quickly.” 

“I know people,” Cara says. “They can help you get out of the area. They can get you far enough away that the Coursers won’t follow.” 

The synth shakes her head. “Thank you. But I figure if I can’t make it on my own, I’m not going to make it at all.” 

“You don’t have to do everything alone. The world can still be kind, if you look for the right people.” Nick replies.

She gives a somewhat resigned smile. 

As injured as she is, it dawns on Cara that she probably has good reason not to trust the pair of them. As she currently has Courser brain matter dripping off her hands and Nick is an old prototype, a cross between the gen twos and threes. They make a suspicious pair, even if they killed a Courser.

The synth introduces herself, insists on “Jenny” and Cara passes along her Railroad name. 

Then they go their separate ways. Jenny disappears down the stairwell they originally entered. With the Courser chip secure in her pocket, Nick helps support her steps to the elevator. 

Standing upright doesn’t make breathing around her ribs any easier.

“Let’s get you back to Diamond City. Doctor Sun can set you back on your feet.” Nick says as he hits the button on the elevator.

“Let’s go to the Old North Church instead,” Cara says. “We have a chip to decode and I know a doctor who can patch me up there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter to date! After two months of working on this draft, I hope it's worth the wait.


	10. Chapter 10

**December 27, 2287**

The skin just above the collar of her shirt burns. Her eyes water from a mixture of sweat, blood, and mirelurk spit. Even parts of her scalp tingle. 

She expected an infestation, at worst a King. She never expected the monster of the Castle to be a mirelurk queen. The hunters gave her enough reason to avoid the shore lines and bodies of open water. 

“Well, that was fun,” Deacon says besides her, scraping the undersides of his boots on the crumbling stone wall. “But let’s not make a habit of this.”

“A habit out of what exactly?” She rubs mirelurk spit off her brow and feels the outline of her new scar. 

_The first person who sees her is at the bottom of the stairs. She isn’t surprised, Drummer Boy knows her by footstep now. He’s surprised to see her however; covered in blood and barely able to walk without Nick’s support. He immediately starts shouting for Doctor Carrington. It’s actually a relief when several people rush forward to help Nick bring her to the gurney in the corner of HQ._

“I’d say mirelurk hunting, but you’re pretty determined to keep rushing headlong into danger.” Deacon replies. 

She can’t argue with that. 

_Across from her she can see Carrington washing his hands with some solution from a glass bottle. “Hey Doc,” she says with wheezy breath._

_Pouring from the same bottle, he wets a cloth and brings it close to her face, towards the injury above her eye. When she flinches away, he says, “Let me look at it.”_

_She lets him clean it out despite the sharp sting._

_“It looks worse than it is,” Carrington says, fingers gently prodding at the wound. “Head wounds tend to bleed a lot. A few stitches is all it needs. Fortunately your vision won’t be impaired, but it will scar.” He presses the cloth back to the wound. “Hold that,” he instructs and lets it pass to her hand._

_“Clearly you didn’t believe me when I said Coursers are the top of the line in the Institute’s ‘fuck-up-your-day’ tech.” Deacon says, stone faced behind the shades as he watches Carrington work._

She can see Preston walking the perimeter of the wall above her. Turning around and walking up the courtyard she says, “Come on, there are probably some more egg clutches inside.” 

“Oh goodie,” Deacon says following anyway. “Maybe we’ll get some omelets out of them.” 

She walks towards the first doorway nearest the staircases. “If not, at least the hatchlings have some good meat in them. Perfect for cakes.” 

“They are tasty, I’m just not sure if they’re worth a few ankle bites.”

She pulls a fresh clip from her belt. “Well with all the other mirelurk carcasses here I’m sure we’ll all be sick of mirelurk steaks and cakes by the end of the week.” 

“Well if you figure out something new to eat out here, let me know. Menu hasn’t exactly changed much for those of us who are post bombs.”

“Was that a jab at my age?” 

“Of course not. You’re my favorite junk collecting, danger seeking antique.” He says as they round the corner and walk down the hallway. 

“Gee thanks, Deeks. I’ll remember that when you –“ 

His hand shoots out, lands hard on her shoulder – where the Courser’s knife cut in – to stop her advance as something burrowing erupts from the dirt.

The world around her moves at double speed. Outstretched claws move towards her face and she feels herself squeeze the trigger on Deliverer several times.

_When he peels back the leather jacket, Carrington grimaces. “We should get you outfitted in a standard heavy jacket. It would’ve prevented this.” His hands reach over to the nightstand and pick up a pair of scissors. While carefully cutting around the fabric of her shirt for better access to the wounds in her shoulders he asks, “You mentioned something about your ribs too?”_

_“Yeah,” she says around a sharp breath. Grits her teeth before she continues, “I got kicked around a bit.”_

_Carefully he lifts her shirt on her side to inspect her ribs; gives pause when she winces in pain at his prodding of the blooming bruises along her ribcage. “I’ll give you a stim for that, and a dose of med-x should dull the pain as it heals. Just try to keep breathing normally, those shallow breaths do more harm than good.”_

_“Hurts quite a bit to breathe.”_

_“I imagine so, you have three broken ribs. I wouldn’t be surprised if more are cracked.” He replies, then returns his attention to her shoulders._

She puts a handful of bullets in the soft underside of the mirelurk. It drops before it reaches them: an outstretched razor claw lands at the toe of her boots. 

Looking down at the mirelurk Deacon asks, “Uh, you were saying?”

Cara walks forward, Deliverer still held tight in front of her. “Let’s just clear this place out.” 

* * *

The radio tower is the first thing restored, the signal going live again for the first time in years mere hours after the last of the mirelurk nests are cleaned out.

Paper hisses as Cara lights a cigarette. “You know how much I hate that,” Preston grumbles, leaning against the back of a couch they pulled from a nearby building. It’s currently the only piece of furniture in the building that’s not waterlogged and moldy. 

Cara shrugs, taking a long drag. She quit once, before Shaun was born. All her time spent in HQ brought the old habit back; rearing its ugly head with a newfound craving for the stale cigarettes that most agents seemed to run on. Cigarettes and the black sludge that passed for coffee fuelled the Railroad. 

“General, can I have a word with you?” Preston asks.

“Sure,” She replies. Leans her back against the wall and angles her cigarette towards the window.

“I don’t usually question your decisions, but that group of friends of yours, are you sure about them?” 

With a sigh of visible white she replies, “Who’s causing trouble?” 

“The fact you have to ask because it could be any of them should be answer enough.” 

“Is it anyone specific I should be aware of?” 

With a sigh and a brief look towards the door he answers, “I don’t understand why MacCready and Cait are with us. The Minutemen aren’t about mercenaries.” 

It’s probably an opinion he’s held for some time now judging by his tone. 

“I didn’t hire them as members of the Minutemen.” Cara replies, pausing long enough to take another drag. “And Cait’s contract is a bit more complex than that.”

“Well, she and Hancock have been an awful influence on Mama Murphy. I can only imagine the havoc they’re all wreaking back at Sanctuary now.” 

The way he says it strikes her as funny, and it is even though she knows he’s sincere about it. “I’ll talk to them about the chems,” she replies. 

“It’s not just the chems, General,” he says. “They give people the wrong idea about us. We’re trying to rebuild, don’t you want us to be better than the last group that caused us all to fall apart?” 

“I don’t know anything about the last group that failed,” she replies, putting out her cigarette in the chipped ceramic dish on the windowsill. Waste of a good cigarette, but it was a waste to just let it burn off too. “But what I do know is that Hancock helped clear Hangman’s Alley of raiders and he convinced the people at the Slog to join us. And while Cait may have her faults, she also has her moments.” 

“And that hulking supermutant? People are terrified of him.”

Well, the man has a point and she can’t really argue there. “Strong’s…well, yeah okay he’s a bit out there, but he’s not that bad. Once you get to know him.” 

“Get to know him? He keeps talking about eating people,” Preston replies. His fingers rub at the bridge of his nose, just touching the edges of his eyes. A pause stretches between them, and then a sigh. “I know you have important things on your mind, General. I know you’re trying to find your son. But you’re our General and – to be honest – you haven’t been doing as good a job as I know you could. Radio Freedom is broadcasting again, please tell me you’re not going to ignore it like you’ve been ignoring the flares for the past month and a half.”

And there it is, the elephant in the room between them. 

He looks at her and she at least has the decency to look ashamed when she looks down at her feet, just anywhere that isn’t his eyes. He’s right and she knows it. She honestly doesn’t know what he’ll say if she tells him yes, that she won’t always be there at the drop of a hat. 

Because the truth is, while the Minutemen are important, they aren’t her number one priority.

“I’m not going to lie or be unrealistic,” she starts and watches as Preston’s eyes narrow slightly. “I can’t be everywhere you need me to be when you need me. I can’t just stop searching for Shaun every time something inconvenient happens in a settlement. I know I’m not the general you want me to be, but I need to find my son. When I do, I’ll dedicate myself to this job like I said I would, but right now I just can’t. I understand if that’s not good enough and you’re more than welcome to find someone else.” 

The silence grows and for a minute she thinks that this is it. They’re toeing the line and this is the divide between them. He’ll tell her she’s fired and that will be it.

She’s had worse partings to be sure.

Except he doesn’t. “Look, we finally have enough people with us to really start making a difference. I’ll start sending patrols out to handle most of the work. Just try to answer the radio every now and again. Maybe even go check out a flare call when you’re in the area.” 

“I can do that,” she says. Not because she can’t say “no”, but because at least he’s willing to work with what she’s willing to give. 

* * *

It takes three days for the Castle to become inhabitable. Mud and mirelurk carcasses are cleared from the building. New beds line the alcoves and a designated bunk room. Mattresses are brought in and made for the sudden traffic circulating in and out of the Castle.

Preston starts organizing patrols and supply lines get reworked across the map to include the Castle. 

The fourth day brings Ronnie Shaw – an old veteran and as tough as nails – who opens the armory. Within hours the big guns are installed along the north wall. 

The display of artillery is a sight to behold; even after the volley of rocket shells ends the air still thunders with the cheers of her people. Excitement and hope swell in the air, and Preston says it’s exactly the kind of turning point the Minutemen need.

Except watching the red glare of explosions wipe out the remains of a shack doesn’t feel like hope and idealism to Cara. It would be so much easier to share in the optimism, but it is a turning point; one she knows the Brotherhood and Institute won’t ignore.

Hopefully she has time before either group comes knocking.

The rest of the day continues on, the hustle and bustle of making the Castle fit for duty continues to move forward. Ronnie decides to stay and Cara has no argument with Preston’s suggestion of making her third in command. She’s another pair of capable hands to take over when she leaves.

She’s relieved its Deacon who finds her in the early hours of the following morning packing her bag. “You okay, Fixer?” 

“I’m good. What about you?” she asks, folding the blue coat and packing it into the footlocker at the end of her bed. The General’s coat: she’ll wear it and the hat when she’s ready for the full-time job. 

“I guess we’re hitting the road again,” Deacon replies. She can see he has his own backpack hanging on his shoulders. Leave it to Deacon to anticipate her moves.

“Yep,” she says, closing the lid on the footlocker. She zips her own bag shut and throws it over her shoulders.

Miles away, in Jamaica Plain, Tinker Tom is working on the relay. If she leaves now, she’ll arrive by the time the sun starts to set. Which happens to be early afternoon thanks to the winter.

She can leave now, Preston can handle the rest of the Castle and the Minutemen while she prepares to break into the Institute. 

It won’t be long before she’s back and keeping her promise anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

**January 9, 2288**

The Institute is immaculate. After the dirt and grime of the commonwealth, it feels _too_ clean. 

Cara certainly doesn’t belong among the white coat scientists. Not with her dirt caked hair, her mud stained boots, and her jacket with blood spatter and bullet holes. 

People give her wide eyed stares before they correct themselves into over-politeness; she is unlike anything they have ever seen in their perfect little underground bubble. 

She obeys her son’s suggestion to meet every head of staff in the place; the echo of Desdemona’s advice to do and say whatever they want in the back of her mind. It’s easy enough to act the part, to smile and shake hands when offered. 

She doesn’t know what to think of the man who is old enough to be her father who claims to be her son. Crying and pleading with the young synth replica of her son was already too much for her to wrap her head around. 

Yet breaking into the FEV lab is easy on her conscious. The door, hidden and off to the side in the Bioscience department, is locked up tighter than Kellogg’s house. She can’t hack her way into the terminal to open the security door; but she picks the lock to a storeroom that should lead her there. She crouches, the way Deacon showed her, and quietly walks down the winding hallways. Past rooms of stacked furniture and crates. Walks over broken glass and kicks up dust accumulated from sudden abandonment. Through hallways with only the emergency lights lit and a handful of security turrets that are easy to pick off as she runs into them. 

Until she reaches a hallway of caged supermutant corpses and carts of rotting animals used to feed them. This is more akin to what she expected the Institute to be: not polished chrome and spotless white floors, but a lab of monsters and the darker ambitions of science. 

The sight of the main lab sets old nerves bubbling in her stomach. Floor-to-ceiling test tubes stand in the room’s center. Of the three, two are filled with the suspended bodies of supermutants; the third is broken and missing its occupant. Tables and terminals are upturned, left where they fell on the floor with the broken glass that crunches under her boots with every step. In the corner, tucked against the wall, one terminal still works. Not even password protected: The Institute’s dirty laundry laid bare for her to see.

_Deceased. Terminated. Tagged and Discarded._

She reads on the dusty screen of the terminal and something inside her burns. The Institute set the FEV out into the wasteland, the proof is staring her in the face. The Institute unleashed a plague of aggressive mutants armed with bullets, bombs, and a virus. 

It’s not the only thing on the terminal either, as she reads Virgil’s logs. The last of which catches her eye as particularly interesting.

_Entered By: DIRECTOR OVERRIDE AZ-99. Notes: --REDACTED-- All inquiries about this project should now go straight to the Director. The lab will be offline until further notice._

Her eyes linger on the word “redacted” for a long minute. There is much to be learned from what the Institute – specifically her son – keeps a secret.

‘ _They're going to spoon-feed you their own patented form of bullshit_ ,’ she remembers Deacon saying. ‘ _Ignore the verbiage and look at what they're doing_.’ And now she can see.

Here is the true face of the Institute; and not the overt attempt to sidestep the truth in their clean coats, purified waterfalls, and blooming greenery. This is what her son is asking her to join. 

She knows where her own line in the sand is: Human experimentation, in both a virus and a wall of brains. 

She shuts the terminal back down. Picks up the holotape labeled “Log 0176” and jams it into the port on her pip-boy. Listens to Virgil as she walks back across the lab towards a table with a few intact glass vials.

What she hears is a long string of regret. As the tape comes to an end, her pip-boy clicking off, she knows she thought wrongly about Virgil. He might not care for synth rights, of the morals and ethics of their free will, but he’s more in touch with his humanity than anybody else in the Institute. 

So she grabs the only undamaged vial that – she hopes – holds his cure and slips it into the inside pocket of her jacket. 

* * *

She slips back out into Bioscience and Isaac catches her in a moment of excitement. He pushes a packet of seeds into her hands and tells her the code phrase for a synth at a farm she’s been to.

“You replaced him?” She asks as her stomach sinks. “Couldn’t you have just sent the synth to work there posed as a settler?” 

He’s quick to wave her off, like her question is unreasonable. Like replacing lives is the more logical course of action. “Look, this project is reflective of years of modified genetics research. We don’t have the time to have our synths integrate themselves naturally into the surface. So we simply switched our agent in with someone easy to replicate. You understand, right?” 

She does not. She wants to scream. More than anything, she wants to drag him by the collar of his too white coat to the teleporter and send him to the surface he’s never dared step foot in. She wants to make him see her settlements, places where strangers have come together to build and survive. Show him how they welcome each drifter with open arms: a bed and a job to contribute if they so wish to stay. Show him and have him look her in the face and explain why it’s necessary to replace innocent lives – lives they do not own. 

She wants to demand where Janey and Wally’s father is; if he’s one of the remaining subjects locked in stasis in the FEV lab or if they set him loose to terrorize innocent people. Demand to know if he’s one of the hundreds of mutants she’s shot without a thought.

She does and voices none of this however. All she does is force a smile and nod in agreement, tell him what he wants to hear as a packet of seeds falls into the palms of her hands. She hears the echo of Desdemona’s words again. She schools her face to a pleasant mask of neutral and walks out of the lab. 

* * *

When she teleports back she stands before the Red Rocket Truck Stop. The turrets standing guard along the highway beep once before recognizing her. 

She pulls the garage door open, steps inside, and then lets it fall shut behind her. Inside nothing has changed. She curls up on the mattress – the one she and Codsworth pulled from the ruins of her old home, the one she spent the first month out of the Vault sleeping on – and gives into the tears. Unleashes every bottled up emotion she suppressed while in the Institute.

She hasn’t been robbed of ten years, it’s been sixty. His whole life gone and passed her by while she slept in that icy tomb. The truth hurts, she can’t have her son back. 

It burns her to admit that Kellogg was right. Her son is where he belongs, at home in the Institute. 

He is – will always – be her son; but the Institute sculpted her baby into their perfect director. A man content to set loose FEV into the commonwealth and approve of the kidnapping and replacement of innocent people. All in the name of a better future: Mankind Redefined.

She doesn’t know what’s worse: the fact he believes that she will be a part of his Institute, or the fact that she knows she’s going to rip it apart from the inside. 

Because her friends back at HQ are anxiously awaiting her report. A report she stole the minute she was alone with a terminal, thanks to Tom’s scanner. A report that includes Patriot’s identity and his plan to free more than a dozen synths.

She’ll begin the long walk to the church in the morning, pass along her report and then move forward from there. 

Her son wants her to go reclaim a synth with a courser. He wants her to see things from his point of view; that the Railroad is misguided and created a monster out of a synth. Instead she sees a man angry that his creations made their own choices that didn't include his approval. Gabriel, a synth, choose to be a raider with his new life. 

It was neither the Institute’s nor Railroad’s choice to make, yet the choice going forward falls into her lap.


	12. Chapter 12

**January 11, 2288**

In the far corner of HQ, to the right of PAM’s room, sits a small bathtub. Sitting next to it is a metal bucket collecting dripping pipe water, ice cold and requiring a mouthful of rad-x to use. An unspoken rule exists among the agents of HQ that no one stares when the bathtub is in use.

Though she is not stripped bare, sitting in old underwear and the beaten-up white t-shirt, Cara is thankful for the unspoken rule as people move about their business in the church catacomb.

She’s sitting on the edge of the tub, her feet freezing in the water while she tackles the stains in her jeans and jacket with a box of abraxo. The water turning murky from the dirt and dried blood.

“Ah, laundry duty.” Deacon says, taking a seat on the stone sarcophagus besides the tub. 

“I figured they’re a little overdue for a wash.” She replies. She does not say that her clothes smelled too briny, mixed with gun powder and iron. 

Delicately he says, “Glory is always setting off fireworks. You had to do it to keep your cover.” 

“Still sucks,” is all she says. She doesn’t look up, keeps her eyes focused on a particularly tough stain in the denim of her jeans. Raider blood or synth blood, she’s not sure. Same difference as far as Gabriel goes anyway. 

Though she knows he is trying to comfort her hurt feelings, she is in no mood to talk about the argument. What’s done is done and she can’t fix it. Thankfully, she thinks he understands that too. 

Changing the subject, Deacon asks, “Where’s your pip-boy?”

She’s not surprised he noticed its absence. “I left it in Diamond City with Nick,” she replies. She figures it’s not the best idea to return to HQ with the Institute’s homing beacon in her arm. Desdemona had even said as much: the risk involved in having a live courser chip in HQ was far too high according to PAM. If she ever brought it to the church, they would have to burn the hideout.

Deacon nods and doesn’t look into it further. Just watches as she pours a half-way refilled bucket into the tub. “Want me to get the hairdryer from Tom?” He asks. “It’s too cold to let them dry normally.” 

“Yeah, that’d be great.” She says, hanging the jeans on the edge of the tub as she prepares to tackle the jacket.

* * *

When she hands the password to Liam late in the evening it becomes a waiting game. Z2 promises to send word as soon as the rebels are properly prepared. 

She hopes it’s worth the trouble of the polymer lab.

Not for the first time – and most certainly not for the last – she feels guilty for going behind Liam’s back when she unloads an arsenal into a locker in the janitor’s closet. She knows Liam won’t be the last person in the Institute she betrays.

She doesn’t pass along the junk the raiders pull together. Instead she provides some guns only second to the Brotherhood: Gunner equipment. She has plenty after she and MacCready handled the outpost. A small distraction from the mess at Libertalia. 

She keeps looking over her shoulder, expecting to see Gabriel’s face round the corner. She doesn’t know what is worse: that she has not seen him or if she were to see him in the sea of white-suited maintenance synths. His hair may be cut back to a proper Institute appropriate length, his face may be freshly shaven and cleaned of war paint, but he is scarred. An aged silver line down the side of his face. The wasteland touched him and she should be able to recognize that she tells herself. 

Though each synth catches her attention, none hold it like X6-88. The courser has become her shadow, personally assigned to her protection by Shaun. 

She tolerates the courser as he follows her through the halls and listens to her every conversation. She’s reminded of Z2-47, monotone hiding embers of emotion. The courser who scarred her hid wrath and danger in the blank mask. She does not know what X6 hides in his except for fierce loyalty to the Institute. 

The courser does nothing to settle her own anxieties as she tries to gather some report to pass to Deacon, which her son misunderstands when he insists that there are no better models in all of the SRB.

Whatever her son thinks, she is no fool. To a man who evaluates her every action like a test – treats his own mother like a science experiment – and refers to his own father as “collateral damage”, she knows the courser is his direct method of spying on her. Probably because she didn't return from libertalia right away like X6 did.

An Institute agent is not so easily left behind like the pip-boy.

Instead she smiles and politely thanks her son for his thoughtfulness. She pretends to stick around waiting to do something useful again. Her son assures her that SRB is working on something and he’ll tell her when they’re ready. Her stomach sinks a bit, but she fakes a smile regardless.

Away from her son’s eyes, Cara lights up a cigarette in one of the designated areas. The cigarettes of the Institute are not stale and even taste like the old world ones she used to smoke.

“Hmm. Our records were wrong. They did not list you as a smoker.” X6 remarks when Cara takes the first drag.

“It’s a recent habit.” She says and he wrinkles his nose slightly. She doesn’t elaborate to say that she picked it up hanging around HQ with Deacon and Glory. She doesn’t explain that it’s a returning habit either, something from an old life. Instead she just files the information away that the Institute has a file on her. Silently wonders if they pulled it from the Vault’s records or if they started one themselves.

“You are aware that those -” 

“I’m very aware of the numerous health risks that come with smoking,” Cara interrupts and then inhales for emphasis. She knows and she does not care. The world ended in fire, why should she be free of the smoke.

* * *

She stands in the shower stall, hot water and steam. It feels so good. Better than ice baths in rivers and the pipe water of HQ. She doesn’t need a mouthful of rad-x either. 

There are probably rules and regulations about shower length, but she couldn’t care less. It’s her first real shower in months. With steam and soap that actually smells like lavender. 

If she closes her eyes she can almost pretend it’s the shower back in Sanctuary. Pretend that Nate is watching the evening news in the living room while Codsworth is rocking Shaun to sleep in the nursery.

Pretend that she’s home. 

But it’s not real. Nate is dead, Shaun is a grown man, and Codsworth is helping the Longs clean the remains of Sanctuary. Her home that doesn’t feel like home anymore. Instead, she’s in the Institute; burning through hot water that’s pure enough to drink while her whole world is in ruin once again. 

She shuts the water off, hard and abrupt, then lingers in the stall till the steam dissipates and the cold air starts to settle over her skin. Finally, when her skin protests in a layer of goose-skin, she grabs a towel that is stark-white and gets to drying herself off. 

She catches her reflection in the mirror; notices the scar across her brow, the deep purple that has settled under her eyes, and the smattering of light stimpak healed scars from both raider and mutant bullets across the rest of her body. 

Her reflection stares back at her in silent judgment and a wave of impulse settles over her like the steam on the mirror. She wants to break it, put her fist through the glass. Wants to ruin something in the perfect, spotless Institute. 

Instead she grabs the clothes she left sitting on the rim of the sink. She slips two rings back onto her finger.

Her quarters in the Institute are not – will never be – home.


	13. Chapter 13

**January 16, 2288**

Amid waiting around the Institute for Shaun to tell her the details of his next big plan, she hears Ellie’s broadcast. She leaves, happy for the excuse to be beyond the Institute’s walls. A case with Nick is exactly what she needs. She relays to the outskirts of Diamond City with X6-88 following closely behind her. The Courser does not leave her shadow until Nick is in her company.

“This is the future of the Institute you’re protecting, unit. Remember that.” 

Nick does not miss the thinly veiled threat from the courser. “And we wouldn’t want to do anything to upset the Institute, would we?” Nick replies tersely. Only when X6 relays away and it is just them in the office does Nick turn to Cara to say, “Since when do you keep Institute agents in your company?”

“Only since my son decided I needed the babysitting.”

* * *

She arrives in the harbor with a handful of a young woman’s holotapes and a mission to find Acadia. Boxer and Desdemona are certain the rumor is true, even asked her to make contact on behalf of the Railroad. There’s a settlement of synths out there, far enough away from the threat of the Institute. The beacon in her wrist agrees, the screen displaying a blinking “out of range” warning.

The settlement of Far Harbor itself is something else as Captain Avery and a man called Allen cut introductions short to fight off what emerges from the fog. Hold a line over tall street lights that seem to keep the fog at bay. The creatures that rush their wall are unlike anything else Cara has ever seen: slick slimy skin, rows of jagged teeth, and one with a luminous light that bobs and weaves through the dense fog. Anglers and Gulpers she learns they’re called. Neither of which she’s fond of.

When the threat passes she works her way around the town. Meets the various harbormen and women that live on the docks of the town. Most treat her with contempt, the title of “mainlander” on their lips. However some hold a conversation with her; though mostly to ask for favors. Cassie Dalton spins a sad story of her cousin and asks for the Ferals to be dealt with, even offers to pay. Cara’s not one to turn her nose up to caps, she says she’ll get it done. The Mariner, in charge of the town’s defense and upkeep, asks if she’ll pick up a set of tools while she’s out wandering the fog. Cara can’t say “no”, and marks the factory on her map. 

Captain Avery asks her to check on a man who had left for water. It’s not terribly far, so she goes. Not like Kasumi is going anywhere or expecting her. Along the road she’s greeted with a handful of mirelurks and finds the body. She turns the fog condensers back on and repairs the water pump. It’s easy enough to do.

Back in town she talks to Teddy Wright and likes him immediately. Spares what she can from her own supplies to help one of his patients, Andre. Neither she nor Teddy know if he’ll pull through – she knows nothing of their fog and its sicknesses – but she hopes he does. 

In _The Last Plank_ she happily accepts a round from Mitch. She’s not sure what to make of a man who calls himself Old Longfellow. Though she knows enough to at least respect anyone who’s reached that age in the wastes. She hands him a whiskey and he agrees to get her across the island.

* * *

DiMA is nothing like what she ever would have expected him to be. She remembers meeting Nick in the belly of a vault and feels a sense of déjà vu in the observatory as the man walks forward from the shadows. Nick is a patchwork of maintenance and repairs; whereas DiMA seems to have embraced his ability for robotic upgrades. His voice is softer, and welcoming enough. Though the reunion between him and Nick is not so open, she’ll need to talk to him about it later.

His question haunts her: Human or synth? 

She remembers growing up in the small flat down the block from Andrew Station. Her siblings bickering over toys on Saturday mornings. She remembers faces, clear as photographs. Milestone moments: Prom, Graduation, her job, meeting Nate, her wedding day, the day Shaun was born, the day Codsworth became part of her family, and the day the bombs fell.

But memories or implants? 

No. It’s all too much for the Institute to know. She cannot be a synth.

DiMA grants her free rein to wander Acadia. He has given her much to think about, but she busies her thoughts with meeting every person who will speak to her. Which turns out to be more than those in Far Harbor. 

Chase she finds interesting. The injury over her left eye is still healing, bright pink scar tissue filling into the space above her eyebrow. But she finds the former courser far more personable than the courser she fought for the chip.

She ends up talking shop with Faraday. Though he guards his knowledge well, he still asks her retrieve a few storage drives from a shipwreck on the coast. Cara agrees, she’s supposed to be making a good impression for the Railroad. Odd jobs seems to be the best way to go. 

Around the observatory she meets the others. Aster, Cog, Cole, Miranda, Naveen, and even Dejen tolerates her conversation. She listens to each of them and gets their story. It makes her feel like Piper. Some explain that they were helped along before Railroad intervention. Chase knows how to track the runaways almost faster than the agents at Bunker Hill can find them.

Jule saddens her deeply, but she takes the angry words and the blame as a member. H2 and Gabriel had seemed fine after their procedures, but Amari is still only human and accidents are a high risk when playing with someone’s brain. 

She finds Kasumi where DiMA said she would. Interrupts her repairs on some generator, and together she and Nick explain why they’ve come.  
But of course Cara can’t just convince the young woman to return to her family.

“Something’s not right here.” Kasumi says and Cara knows the job has just gotten much harder than she originally anticipated.


	14. Chapter 14

**January 18, 2288**

She is up to her calves in the freezing water. The chill of the fog and the beginnings of what will become a heavy downpour furthering the cold settling into her. She’s almost thankful for the rain as it starts to dilute the mirelurk spit.

She pulls the blade she bought from Brooks’ store in the harbor and gets to work breaking open the thick exoskeleton. Taking advantage of her earlier work, she jams the blade into a bullet hole. Puts her back into it and shoulders the blade into the tissue of the underbelly. She digs her heels into the thick mud underfoot, as much as a grip as she can get, before she pushes her weight against the blade’s handle. Post-battle her muscles strain and ache, but the shell eventually gives way with a crack.

She fixes her grip on the handle then begins pushing it back and forth. Widening the hole and wedging the blade free. She’ll need to bring the meat back to complete the dance.  
She hopes this dance of hers does something more than put her almost knee deep in mirelurk guts. The radstag entrails she’d used as bait are floating somewhere close by. The mixture of briny and rancid stench caught in her nose. She’s not sure there’s enough abraxo in the world to get it out of her jacket this time.

It’s a dance she’s doing for the Harbormen’s respect. So that they’ll stop glaring at her, sneering as she walks by and every time she attempts conversation. Too much like the Brotherhood for her liking, she thinks as she carves her way to the soft meat of the queen. “Mainlander” has become a very tired title among her small collection, one that’s worn itself out. 

Elbow deep in mirelurk guts, she thinks about anything else as she goes through the motions of harvesting meat from the carcass. 

Her new combat rifle did a pretty good job of taking care of the mirelurk queen’s shell earlier. Better than Deliverer would have at least. December’s Child etched into the wood of the short stock. 

Her discovery of the Vim factory’s secrets still very fresh in her mind. Safely wrapped in her pack is Avery’s skull. The _real_ Avery’s skull. She never expected DiMA’s memories to lead her to such a truth. 

Nick is back in Acadia too. Finally talking to his brother, making up for lost time. He doesn’t know about the skull, the launch key, or wind farm code. 

She’s not entirely sure what to do about any of it either. Confront DiMA or tell Avery? Neither is a dance she’s looking forward to.

* * *

**January 23, 2288**

Cara is twelve feet from the door when the Nucleus explodes. She feels the heat wash over her back and she falls forward, scraping her hands. Her Geiger counter screams from her wrist. 

Drinking irradiated water didn’t make her want to vomit as much as she does right now. Guilt or the radiation, she can’t decide. She grits her teeth and swallows the feeling down regardless. 

She looks behind her, at the smoldering remnants of the Nucleus.

This is a choice. She reminds herself, because so many fall into her lap these days. People send her off to do the hard work and no one is ever happy.

* * *

“What have you done?” DiMA asks when she returns to Acadia.

“I made a choice. It was you or them, and I choose you.” She tells him with soot and flaking bits of dried blood on her cheeks and hands. His advisors are in the room, Chase and Faraday standing close behind him in the main chamber of the observatory. Nick is standing close by, halfway between where both she and DiMA stand. 

“That’s not a choice you had a right to.” Though his voice is as level and calm as always, his anger slips through like water in cracked ice. “You had no right, Cara.” He insists.

“You had no right either, DiMA.” She snaps back. “You killed Avery and replaced her with one of your own people. Your solution would’ve had me do the same.” 

“You’ve no right to –“ Faraday begins, before DiMA holds out a hand to quiet him. For a split second she wishes he would continue, whatever comment about synth identity would've been rich coming from him.

“That isn’t fair, Cara.” The old synth calmly responds. “This didn’t have to end in such violence.”

“We all don’t have the luxury of hiding every bad memory away,” she bites back. And it’s the truth. No matter her feelings, she will live with this till the end of her days.

“That’s uncalled for.” He replies, pauses then says, “Someone should tell Avery.”

“You leave that woman alone. You’ve done enough DiMA. Let her live her life. That town has some peace now.”

“The Children of Atom can’t say the same.”

“Tektus was crazy and would have killed everyone in Far Harbor and Acadia.” Cara argues and can feel her voice rising. “He was already conducting witch hunts. He was killing his own damn people, DiMA.” 

“I told you that not everyone there was like Tektus.”

“Enough of them were!” She snaps back, but knows it isn’t true. Sister Mai, Zealot Ware, and Sister Aubert. Maybe a dozen more. She hadn’t bothered to know. But they believed in division, so perhaps their fate was not wholly awful. Bodies on the pile. She made a choice.

“If this is railroad help, then I do not want it.” Faraday says and Chase echoes her agreement.

“It’s not. This is my doing, not the Railroad’s.” Cara replies. 

“At least you take responsibility.” Faraday says and the backhand is not lost on Cara.

“I haven’t tried otherwise, unlike someone.” She says, turning and meeting his stare with a challenge. She didn’t tell Jule the truth: the lies he fed her. How he turned Victoria and twisted her into Jule and placed responsibility on the Railroad. Who is he to judge her? 

"Since when are you an expect on synths? You think you are because you're Railroad?" Faraday snaps back.

"I never claimed I was. I also didn't lie to -" 

"Enough," Chase cuts in and Cara can see the courser in her rear it's head. Dangerous and calculating.

“Send your agent," DiMA says with a sigh. "Chase can decide if we work together."

Faraday can't help but add, "But I don’t want it to be you.”

“No problem, Faraday.” Cara says as a way of parting, then turns away and starts walking towards the stairs. It takes her a moment, but eventually she hears Nick’s footsteps behind her.

* * *

Kasumi says the same thing. Not her right, but she convinces the girl to leave: To return home. Maybe away from her new one, but her parents miss her and the pain of a missing child is one she understands all too well. Even a full grown one.

Together they leave Acadia. Cara knows it is the last time she will ever see the settlement. 

When the three of them pass through town and the fortified Hull they see the gathering. They’re in time for the moment of silence, which Cara gives even though she is the reason for it. Her eyes sting but she does not - will not - cry. 

Enough is enough, she vowed one too many times.

Avery spits more venom at her. She doesn’t bother to fight back. The woman was programmed to want peace. Truth and thought and belief all built by design instead of organic determined growth. Or maybe overtime it slowly aged into it. Either way, Cara does not care. 

The turbine codes are still in her pocket, they’ll never be used back in the commonwealth. And the skull destroyed by DiMA should keep her safe.

A week on the island and she’s turned it upside-down.

* * *

Nick places a hand on her shoulder as they sail off. “You alright, kid?” 

She thinks on her answer as Far Harbor moves further away. The boat’s automated mapping taking them out to sea and back to the commonwealth. Kasumi is at the wheel, still within ear shot but as far away from Cara as she can manage for the moment. “I’m not sure Nick.” 

Though what she’s unsure about she doesn’t really know. The choice is made. She used the launch key and what’s done is done.

“I’m sorry if I ruined things between you and DiMA.” She finally says after some time. 

“I’d rather know the truth. And I do now because of you.” He says, and there’s a small bit of comfort there.

She hopes she left the island off better than when she arrived. That one smoking crater is worth it for the rest of the island.

The Mariner might be dying, but her Hull will last for years to come. She’s going to leave behind a legend too: the Red Death vanquished at last. None need to know the real story there. 

She knows the people will recover. They know their island and how to fight off the Fog. Without the tension between the Harbor and the Children, and no strain in the relationship of Acadia, she thinks things will recover. Between setting up Dalton Farm and Echo Lake Lumber she’s sure they’ll keep a better hold on their land. They won’t be pushed back to just the Harbor again anytime soon. 

Who knows, maybe Boxer will have better luck with Acadia too.

She made a choice and now everyone on the Island has to live with it. Sailing into the night, with the Island and all its people far beyond the horizon, Cara wonders what she’s sailing back to. Back towards the familiarity of the Commonwealth and the unfinished business with the Institute and whatever it is her son has planned. She’ll need to make a choice there too, when the time comes.

A choice she hopes she can live with.


	15. Chapter 15

**February 6, 2288**

Shaun regards her for a long moment, no doubt evaluating his words. He’s read her report on Far Harbor; a very tailored report at that. She mentioned nothing of Acadia, only the story of a confused girl who mistakenly thought her family troubles were because she was a synth. Cara had stressed the note of teenage drama and left it at that.

But now Shaun had called her to his office and she could see the very same report on the terminal screen on his desk.

“We have an important mission scheduled for tonight. I think you should be there. Tell me, mother, what would you do if someone has stolen from you?” 

She gives a quick, humorless laugh. She couldn’t help it as it bubbled past her throat. “I think you know the answer to that question.” 

Shaun smiles fondly and there is a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “The group that calls themselves the Railroad has acquired several synths from the Institute. Synths that have gone missing in recent months.” 

And there it is. This is what she has been dreading for months: a mission that forces her to outright choose between the Railroad and the Institute. She knew it was coming, she just had not expected it so soon after returning from Far Harbor.

“They no doubt mean to free these synths in their delusional belief that synths are somehow sentient beings,” he continues. “You’ve been in contact with the Railroad, so you are no doubt aware of their misguided beliefs.” 

_Tell them what they want to hear_ , Desdemona’s words echo in her thoughts. Her agent training kicks in and she says, “I don’t exactly know them, Shaun. They just decoded the chip so that I could find you, I never really met any of them face to face.”

“Our intelligence suggests otherwise, but I do not hold you accountable for their actions.” Shaun replies, but lacks the edge to his voice. “After Libertalia you must realize that they are a selfish, short-sighted group. Usually they are a minor nuisance, but lately they have become more emboldened. I’m afraid we’ve reached the point where a response is necessary.”

He makes it sound so simple. As though the Institute has never retaliated against the Railroad before. He clearly doesn't want her knowing about the massacres at the Switchboard, Augusta, Allen, and Herkimer. 

But she does know. She knows it's not just the Railroad he's sent Coursers out to squash. She's seen University Point. She knows so much better than he thinks she does. 

“What do you need me to do?” she asks.

“We have learned the location of our missing synths, and need to re-acquire them before the Railroad can hide them. You have five hours to prepare. A Courser will be waiting for you near Bunker Hill.” Shaun explains.

That’s not a lot of time, Cara worries. Instead she says, “I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t, Mother. You’ll resolve the situation, I’m sure of it.”

* * *

After rushing through the SRB’s mission prep, Cara relays to a side street near Bunker Hill and begins to strip her Courser jacket, tucking it into a mailbox. There’s no way she’ll run into the settlement wearing that.

She runs through their gate. She stops short at Old Man Stockton’s counter, the older man looking at her for a stunned moment. Like he doesn’t recognize her. Even without the armored jacket, Cara knows she doesn’t look like good news.

“Do you have a Geiger counter?” she asks. 

And suddenly the recognition settles in on the old man’s face. “Mine is in the shop,” he replies in a hushed tone. 

Urgently she replies, “Do you have a courier service? I need an urgent message sent.” 

“There’s a mailbox down the – “ he starts to reply but Cara interrupts.

“We don’t have time for a regular drop. It needs to be delivered now, the _other guy_ is making a move today.” She tries to put emphasis on the right words, trying to play Stockton’s own game.

He only shakes his head, voice dropping lower, “I can’t just send a runner. That’s not protocol.”

Cara looks over her shoulder, searches for any familiar faces. She had forced herself to learn the designations and faces of all the Institute’s active Coursers. Seeing the market is clear she replies, her voice just as low, “The Institute is going to hit Bunker Hill at sundown. We need to warn HQ right now.” 

Old Man Stockton’s eyes go wide, almost comically so. But Cara does not laugh. “Our last runner left and shouldn’t be back for hours. Hand me your pip-boy and run.”

Cara obeys, quickly unstrapping the device from her wrist. He takes it, quickly hiding it under the counter, and Cara turns to run. She breaks into a full sprint outside of the gate. If she’s not back by the time the Courser comes looking for her, they’ll know she’s been lying about her whereabouts. She won’t be able to lie to Ayo or Shaun about why. It will burn her cover.

She’s halfway across the bridge and the sky is already red with the setting sun.

* * *

She comes sprinting into HQ, running past mattresses and sleeping agents, and trips over loose bricks on her way into the main chamber. Desdemona – standing at the war table with a half-finished cigarette burning in her hands – is the first to see her standing, leaning with an arm against the wall to steady her. She hasn’t even caught her breath when she warns Desdemona about Bunker Hill. Everyone else gathered for the meeting visibly pales. 

“Where are we going to relocate them?” Glory says, quick to move, finger always on the trigger. Timing is vital and Cara knows they don’t have enough of it.

Doctor Carrington is quick to reply, “We’re at full capacity at every other safehouse. We cannot move anyone without serious risk of discovery to the others.” 

“We will not abandon Bunker Hill. We swore to protect them.” Des replies just as swiftly. Carrington is an excellent balance to Desdemona’s emotional, gut-reaction leadership. But today his tactical thinking is not enough to get her to see reason. “We’ve never known when the Institute would strike before, we cannot let this chance go to waste. Fixer and Glory can go and help turn the tide against them.”

“The Institute is ordering me to fight with them.” Cara adds between winded breaths. There’s a reason she’s a Heavy and not a Runner.

“You can’t.” Glory snaps back.

“If I don’t and you all fight back, then they’ll know I tipped you off and it’ll blow my cover,” she replies. “Then we don’t have an in at the Institute and Z1’s rebellion fails before it gets off the ground.”

“You reclaimed a synth for those bastards already. Enough is enough.” Glory says hotly. “Z1’s people aren’t going to keep trusting you or us if you keep reclaiming synths for those Institute bastards.”

“She has an excellent point,” Carrington replies.

“I wasn’t saying I would fight you. I know whose side I’m on, but I have to be there.” Cara says. “They sent a Courser escort that I’m supposed to rendezvous with at sundown before the assault begins.”

“Clock’s ticking, so what are we doing, Des?” Deacon asks. 

Everyone looks to the Alpha for an answer, an order, but she takes a slow drag of her cigarette. She holds it, then exhales a long stream of smoke. At times like these Cara knows that Des would like to feed the information to PAM and wait for a prediction. But they do not have time for PAM to run the numbers. “It’s a risk, but you have to take out that Courser and any other Institute witnesses,” she finally says. “Make up a cover story, if anyone can get out of an ambush gone wrong it would be you. You just have to sell them on it.”

“Really?” Carrington asks. “That is one hell of a gamble. Not to mention all the other factors that make it highly unlikely to succeed.”

“Hey, well, the only way we ever make it from one disaster to the next is by taking a crazy-ass gamble and hoping for the best.” Deacon replies.

Cara looks at him, eye to glasses. “Wing and a prayer only gets us so far, Deacon.” That anxiety is twisting knots in her stomach again. The possibility of failure hangs over her head and none of the consequences look good.

“You and Glory are the only two to ever drop a Courser. If anyone has a shot at this, it’s you.” Desdemona says. “Now go. I’ll radio in our agents and let them know to set up a kill-zone. Everyone else, all hands on deck. We may need to burn HQ and run. Move it people!” 

Cara goes to turn back down the hallway, but Deacon catches her elbow. “I’m coming with you.” 

“Deacon, you can’t,” she replies. “The Courser is expecting me to be alone.” 

“I’ll keep my distance,” he assures. “I’m coming to watch your back and help make sure this whole thing doesn’t go to hell in a hand basket.” 

She doesn’t argue with that. She nods and together they tear ass through the tunnel to get back to Bunker Hill.

* * *

She pulls the Courser jacket from the mailbox and hastily throws it over her shoulder. She fumbles with the zipper as she moves towards the rendezvous point. She had retrieved the pip-boy from Old Man Stockton first and now she has no time to spare. 

She rounds the corner and X4-18 looks up, “You’re late.” There is a tenseness to his tone. She notes the Institute laser rifle in his hand, carried casually at his side just as the Courser from Greenetech had.

“Sorry to have held you up,” Cara says pleasantly and gives a sort of sheepish smile.

“Next time, move faster.” X4 replies. “I assume you've been briefed.” Much more a statement than question and Cara nods.

“Our targets are inside: four synths. We move in, secure the synths, and then you relay out with them back to the Institute. Right?”

“Affirmative.” X4 says. “Majority of the settlement is uninvolved, and are expected to run for cover.”

Cara can’t help herself, “And if they don’t?”

“Irrelevant," X4 snaps dryly. "Any threats between us and the target are to be eliminated. Only the synths matter.” 

Cara nods, “Understood.” Her face becomes a mask. _Over my dead body_ , she thinks; and that’s a pretty high possibility before the end of the night.

Except the night has more surprises in store for her yet. Cara hears them before she sees them: the rapid spin of vertibird propellers that she’s slowly become accustomed to ever since the Brotherhood flew into the Commonwealth. X4 hears it too, they both stop in their tracks and look up: watching two vertibirds as they fly overhead towards Bunker Hill.

A siren starts to blare from the settlement.

X4 looks back to her and says, “The situation appears to have escalated. A covert approach is likely impossible.” And by the colder than usual look in his eye, Cara knows what he’s thinking. The Brotherhood is too convenient and she was late. It’s too close to be a coincidence, and the Institute does not believe in those. 

She follows as he leads out of the alley and they get a clear view of the chaos descending on Bunker Hill. Railroad Heavies and Brotherhood Knights already in the middle of a fire fight. 

“The mission's parameters just changed. We go in shooting. Requesting backup relay now.” She hears X4 order. Four synths, Gen-2 and heavily armored, flash into the alley next to them. A Brotherhood soldier nearby turns at the sound of the relay.

Cara brings up her own Institute rifle and starts firing. She still has Deliverer on her, in the holster on her hip, but she had been given the rifle by the SRB and encouraged to approach this mission like an Institute operative. Something she gets the feeling that X6-88 might have commented on in his report from her mission at Libertalia. 

The Brotherhood soldiers fall to the rapid fire of her laser rounds, dying with words still on their lips: various phrases of Brotherhood victory spoken like a prayer. Cara looks around at the chaos, briefly wondering where Deacon is in all of this, but notices that X4 has already taken off sprinting toward the gate.

Cara sprints to catch up to him. “There’s a side gate!” She shouts over the noise around them; shooting and screaming and the rhythmic beat of the vertibirds. Plus she knows that the side door is double-barred from the inside and hopes that will slow the Courser down enough to give her an opening.

Except when they reach the far wall around the back, X4 kicks the door down in one well placed kick. It splinters inward to give them an entry into the Hill. X4 strides into the settlement without pause, raised rifle in hand and firing on everyone who didn’t manage to run clear before the door had burst open.

“Coursers in the field! Fall back!” one of the Railroad heavies on the catwalk behind the gate shouts. They are his last words as X4 opens fire on him and she tries not to look too stunned as he falls to the ground below.

Behind him Cara follows, shooting wide of anyone that looks like Railroad or Bunker Hill settlers. She aims true on the Brotherhood troops. X4 will notice if all of her shots are wide after all. She knows that some of the agents stationed at Bunker Hill wear the standard heavy brown coats, but most wear standard leather and combat armor. They look like caravan guards or mercs; the kind of people Bunker Hill might hire to help defend the settlement. 

In the middle of the fight X4 glances at a device on his wrist, “They’re this way,” he says as he reaches for his belt. And then his stealth field flicks on and he disappears completely.

_The bastard is trying to lose me_ , she realizes. “X4!” she shouts, but he doesn’t respond. She feels the rising panic in her chest. He’s gone.

Cara bee-lines for the cellar door behind the medic counter in the market place. “Hey pal, fancy seeing you here.” Deacon greets in the market and helps pull open the heavy door. “I saw your Courser buddy dump you like a bad date, doesn’t he know that’s not how you treat a lady in the middle of a fire fight?”

Cara shakes her head. “Hope the guys downstairs are keeping him at bay long enough for us to catch up.” They get the door open and Cara drops down. She drops the Institute rifle and pulls Deliverer from her holster. With Deacon behind her they run along the corridor, the sounds of heavy fire bouncing off the walls.

In the main chamber she can see Railroad agents bunkered down behind a wall of sandbags. It isn't just X4 they're firing on; the Brotherhood has also found their way down to the cellar. She can see five surviving heavies trying the keep the assaulting forces at bay. She knows it won't be long before they're overwhelmed.

“Time to earn our paychecks.” Deacon says behind her. 

Cara reaches into the bag on her belt and pulls a grenade. She pulls the pin and throws; she gives a shrill whistle as it arcs through the air to get attention and shouts, “Hit the deck!” She turns back under the cover of the wall in time for the detonation of the pulse grenade, then tears off into the fray. 

The Brotherhood’s armor sparks and crackles with disrupted electricity. An opening that everyone is quick to exploit. She rushes to X4’s side and together they fight to clear the room. Again she fires wide on the occasional shot towards the Railroad heavies, mostly she focuses on the Brotherhood. She watches as X4’s rifle eats through a Paladin's power armor in two shots. The Brotherhood drops like flies under their combined fire.

The room goes quiet when the last Brotherhood fighter falls. The Railroad agents hold their fire, waiting with held breath. X4 rounds on them; rifle held up. Time seems to slow; he is the last outsider still standing and this is her opening.

She turns towards him and raises Deliverer, lines the shot with the back of his head and pulls the trigger. Except it doesn’t rip through his skull like it had for the Courser at Greenetech. He rounds on her and his gaze registers the raised pistol in her hands.

The rest is a blur. He grabs her wrist and gives a sharp twist that sends Deliverer clattering to the ground. There's enough strength to snap bone behind his grip. A cry of pain tears from her and suddenly the room erupts into another shower of bullets and shots off gauss rifles. Except nothing penetrates the heavy, standard courser coat he wears. 

One moment she is standing, the next she is on the ground. The impact of her head smacking against the concrete floor leaves her dizzy. Not to mention the shooting pain that comes from landing on her injured wrist. She tries to move on the ground, her world swimming and unable to breathe through the pain in her chest. She can just make out X4’s black boots in front of her. For a second her mind goes back to those terrifying, awful moments in Greentech: the Courser with a knee on her diaphragm and a blade in her shoulder. 

Instead of kicking her as the other Courser had, X4’s vice-like grip closes around her throat and he lifts her up until her feet barely touch the ground. He is holding her as if she weighs nothing. She has enough clarity to kick, trying to find footing and attempting to hit his shins, while her arms move to grip his hand in a feeble attempt to pry him off. Her vision starts to go black and fuzzy around the edges.

Someone – an agent – is shouting something, and then something solid and unseen knocks into the Courser from behind. It knocks him off balance, his feet sliding with the momentum and it takes them all to the ground. She hits solid ground hard for the second time; except now with a heavy weight on top of her. It is just enough for his grip to soften, just barely enough that she is able to take a rasping breath. Her vision doesn't clear, little stars flutter in her field of view that she tries to blink away in the confusion of what is happening.

X4 turns his head away from her to see who or what had attacked. There is a movement and then his free hand grips solid air. Even with her swimming vision, Cara is just able to make out the shimmer of a stealth field.

_Deacon._

Of course it's Deacon, a moment of clarity tells her. And she seizes the opportunity.

She drops her feeble grip on X4’s hand and reaches for her belt under the heavy courser coat and pulls a knife. She doesn't hesitate, she plunges it into his throat and then jerks the blade free.

X4 releases his hold on both of them and clutches at his neck. His eyes go wide and his lips tremble, as though trying to speak. Then he fell backwards onto the ground, motionless and dead weight still on top of her. 

Deacon shimmers back into view and another agent rushes forward to help pull her up. “Holy shit,” the heavy says looking at the lifeless courser.

“Yeah,” Deacon said with a winded quality to his voice, “that sure was fun.”

She just barely hears him over the blood drumming in her ears. “Are the synths okay?” she asks the heavy. 

“Yeah,” the man replies. “Holy shit we did it.”

She stares at the body of X4 for a long minute. He would have killed her, she knows. If Deacon hadn't helped her she would be dead right now. She's only alive because once again someone had to help her; had to save her. It's not a pleasant thought. 

Almost worst is the realization that she's hold a bloody blade. Something churns in her stomach, everything catches up to her. She swallows that feeling, willing herself not to get sick in front of everyone. She has killed people before, has killed since her first day stepping out of 111. But this feels wrong on a completely different level. 

It's a thought she's lost in until she feels something just barely touch her wrist and she hisses in pain. It's Deacon. “Doc should take a look at that,” he says. She looks down at her bad wrist for the first time and sees the bone jutting out of her skin. It sends her head spinning, but again she forces herself to not get sick. _The calm survive, the panicked die,_ the old advice from Preston rings in her ears.

She shakes her head and cradles her wrist in her good hand. “No, it’ll help sell my cover. They might believe my failure if I show up injured.”

"Fixer," he starts to argue, but she moves away. 

She picks up Deliverer from where she dropped it and puts it back in her holster; then goes back to cradling her injury. She looks at her pip-boy and says, "I have to go." She can see by the line of his mouth that he doesn't agree, that he wants to argue, but he doesn't. 

She still has one of the worst parts of this mission left to do. One that he can't save her from: Telling Shaun that she failed.


End file.
